I worked as a consultant for a $40 billion-a-year company, 12 years, and then they hired me full-time. Less than a year later, I was laid off, and then about 8 months after that, I was brought back as a consultant again. At a better pay rate than before. During that \u201csabbatical\u201d I worked at a small start-up that made brain-training games. Part of my job was to read brain-blogs all day long, on all sorts of subjects, from biology to psychology to philosophy. By this deeply personal and circuitous route, I bring you to my discovery of \u201cmindfulness,\u201d which has been a pretty hot topic in brain science for a few years now.<\/p>\n
The relevance of mindfulness to the above, of course, is being aware that end results are always only the very smallest part of a journey. It\u2019s a more complicated way of suggesting one not sweat the small stuff. So the Mariners lost AGAIN last night. How can mindfulness help me deal with this sports anxiety?<\/p>\n
I mean, thinking about it, new-age philosophy and sports fandom go together like peas and chocolate. Indeed, the only place they would ever meet is in the head of a self-indulgent, middle-aged, upper middle class, privileged white male living in Seattle in the new-millennia teens. Nevertheless, here I am.<\/p>\n
The Mariners, after 14 games, are five and nine. They have to win four games in a row just to break even. They have to do better than they\u2019ve done, so far, just to be considered mediocre. There\u2019s an irony there. Hard work is supposed to be its own reward, but here\u2019s what I\u2019m finding in all of this: no it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n
If the journey is the thing, then the current record doesn\u2019t matter. And we hear this in sports all the time. Athletes will tell you they don\u2019t think about the last game, they only think about the next one. They don\u2019t think about the play-offs, they just think about the next game. And when they\u2019re playing, they only think about the game they\u2019re in.<\/p>\n
Turns out, good athletes are expert practitioners of mindfulness. And that\u2019s the reward: not needing a reward. \u201cIt isn\u2019t whether you win or lose; it\u2019s how you play the game.\u201d So, ignoring the winning and the losing of my home-town team, how am I playing this game?<\/p>\n
All I can do is try to find something in this game I\u2019m playing, this ridiculously close examination of my feelings vis-\u00e0-vis the losing record of one of the highest paid teams in baseball. My discovery: mindfulness. Being self-aware. Knowing that I\u2019m darn lucky to even have access to the misery of watching my team lose. Being grateful for my existence.<\/p>\n
And laughter\u2014 the look on the average fans face if\/when I tried to explain all of the above. \u201cEvery loss is a gift,\u201d I would say. \u201cSo is every beer,\u201d they\u2019d reply. Sounds like a win-win to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I worked as a consultant for a $40 billion-a-year company, 12 years, and then they hired me full-time. Less than a year later, I was laid off, and then about 8 months after that, I was brought back as a consultant again. At a better pay rate than before. During that \u201csabbatical\u201d I worked at … <\/p>\n