Episode 93: Could Have Done Better

Transcript

this might be short i'm not sure i don't sit and script these things out
all that thoroughly and so whatever length it ends up being it tends to end up being
this is a this is a piece of what's intended to be some combination of advice and motivation
but as with much of the advice and motivation i tend to talk about or give it probably ends up
wrapped in what sounds like some kind of lamenting or pessimism but that's not the point here
when i was growing up i've talked about this before i was a swimmer uh for a good i mean
looking back it's funny because looking back the if you look at it in relativity now to you know that
the time i have been alive it wasn't that much time right i i can't remember exactly when i started
i was probably i believe i was in first grade going into second grade which was probably
what would i have been seven years old or something and then i swam through um into early high school
uh and i think i stopped around 15 or 16 years old something like that so all told it was only eight
or nine years something like that i always think about it as a much more significant longer period
of time in my life i think it was because it was so formative and it was during those very formative
years and it was also very intense right like when you're swimming
the team i swam with i was swimming 10 practices a week typically in that ballpark somewhere
eight to ten practices a week plus swim meets plus you know whatever else but anyway so i i swam all
these years and i had this coach who uh whose name was bob toward the end of my time i suppose the last
few years i was swimming i had this coach he was the upper level swim coach for the club bob has died
in the last couple years which um maybe some of this is about just a little bit of a homage to him i
don't know but you know i swam with him and then when i started kind of tapering down and i quit
ultimately i didn't see him for a few years and then i i saw him again he and i went to the same
gym like when i got a little bit older and i started going to not you know i was probably in
early college years where i would see him regularly we happened to bump each other quite a bit
i was in there and i was lifting weights and i was you know trying my best to gain muscle and all that
kind of stuff and one day he came over to me and he said you know if you had tried this hard at
swimming you would have been great now setting aside the there's sort of a fallacy baked in there
because there's the issue of enjoyment right like i really enjoy weight lifting swimming there were
times i really enjoyed it but overall it wasn't necessarily the sport that i wanted to do it was
just kind of the sport that i ended up in so i never enjoyed it to the same extent that maybe i
would have enjoyed some other sports and certainly i i very much enjoy you know lifting weights and that
kind of stuff so but setting that kind of logical piece of things aside his point was you know kind
of stuck with me of this you know because they were he was right right a lot of the times when i would
get in the pool i wouldn't be trying all that hard i wasn't not trying but i wasn't pushing myself to
that extreme that i probably could have if i was really wanted to try right i remember this feeling
and you know it's just it didn't like bother me or anything like he was very friendly about it by
this point we were you know very friendly you know we'd see there to the gym we'd say hi like all was
well it was wasn't like a he wasn't coming up to like jab me you know i think he was honestly just
saying it in a very friendly way one of the a similar situation that did jab me more and it was another
person it was myself going through high school i definitely didn't try very hard in fact you would
you would be forgiven for thinking that i actually tried to do poorly um so by the time i got out of
high school like my gpa was pretty terrible i i didn't really focus on that part of my life until i
got into college uh where i did very well but but in high school i don't know just wasn't trying very
hard and i remember getting to graduation and being surrounded by friends and people and whoever
else who did try a lot harder than me and most of them had succeeded far better than i did like
higher gpa more extracurriculars you know all all the things and i remember that graduation
very specifically because i remember leaving it you know the overall temperature of a high school
graduation is that everyone is it's like it's like everyone's very celebratory right everyone's
very happy to be finished and they feel as if they've accomplished something and they can move
on to the next part of their life and and all those things were true right like even for myself like
i had accomplished something i hadn't accomplished it all that well but i had accomplished it it was time
to move on to the next part of my life and i was happy that it was through high school wasn't my
favorite time in my life but i remember having this this feeling this overall feeling of you know i could
have done better and it kind of put a damper on the celebratory piece right because i felt like i
hadn't earned the celebration like i i felt like after these four years of really not trying very hard at
all barely scraping by that at the end of it i was being awarded with this diploma and told that
you're good to go but i didn't feel like i had earned the cell like i i didn't feel like i had earned
the relief and the celebration for it being over and i remember just having this overall feeling of
man you could have done better you could have tried a little harder could have performed a little
better and i remember telling myself or thinking myself you know i don't want to ever feel like
this again like it was it was weird because it hadn't resulted in any particularly horrible
consequences i had still gotten through it ultimately and maybe this was just my arrogance but i knew that
you know heading out to you know college and whatnot i was gonna be fine because all i had to do was
notch up that effort and i'd be okay like i wasn't scared i would never be able to learn anything again
or something but i just didn't like that feeling of like i didn't earn this thing very well i could i
didn't like the feeling of that back of the head voice to said man you could have done better
and both of these instances kind of stuck with me over the over my life i'd say they're they're pretty
formative things right in both cases the parallel or the the commonality here is that in both cases
i could have been trying harder and i remember this bit of logic right that i think other swim coaches
had imparted along the way and it went like this it was kind of like well look if you're gonna be here
if you're gonna spend hours doing this why not try hard at it right if you're gonna be here anyway
what is the point of going through the motions it you're still spending the time and and i very much
this that's always wrong with me because i very much believe that like time is
you know probably the most precious resource that a human being has we're not here all that long and
you really should be trying to do something with your time and so if you're going to spend hours and
hours of it doing something that you're not going to really try all that hard at then either pick up
the effort or stop doing the thing like one of those two things should probably occur
i wanted to put this on this show
just as sort of a
i don't know
a nudge or a reminder or a
whatever
that when you're not doing much with what you're doing or you're not
enjoying what you're doing or
you're not trying very hard at what you're doing or you're not
maybe relishing
in
your life at the moment
try to fast forward a little bit
and think to yourself you know when this is when this chapter of things is finished
am i gonna look back at this and feel like i could have done better
and i'm not saying i've been perfect about this there have been things since
both of these incidents you know whatever 20 plus years ago
that i have fallen to the same pattern you know where i get done it and i'm kind of like
well i get through something i said well you know i i probably could have done a little bit better there
but it there are other instances where it has prompted me to you know put in a little more
effort into things or relish a little more in what's going on or live a little more in the
moment maybe something like that just to think you know when this is when i'm through this piece
of things i really don't want to look back and just say you know you could have done better
so i don't know if it resonates with you
just thought i'd kind of throw it out there as a
a way to frame where this sort of thing might might lead you
and next time you find yourself not putting in all that much effort into something
think about that for a second you know a year from now two years from now five years from now
am i going to look back at right now and think you know you could have done a little bit better
you could have tried a little bit harder you could have enjoyed that a little bit more
and then you can see what you might have to shift in order to prevent that
and then you could have tried a little bit better you could have tried a little bit better