Tea and Performance

When it comes to most physical activities, the phrase that best describes me is, “Inept but enthusiastic!” An example of the inept part comes to mind from a few weeks ago.  

There I was in my home office where my clothes also reside. As I was putting my pants on a hanger, I knocked my Yeti mug over. Now, Yeti mugs are built well with a secure lid. But did I have the little magnetic cover slid over the drinking hole? Nope. 

Out glugged a tea-milk mix (delicious, by the way) out across the right side of my desk and my computer mouse. I dropped the pants and hanger and quickly righted the mug. It was a bit too quick though and splush  goes more of the warm liquid out the hole (my spell checker says it splashed, but it really was more of a splush), this time across the left side of my desk and my keyboard. Hastily I righted the mug again...or at least I thought so, but this time only 1/3 of it was sitting on the desk. 

Gravity being what it is, over it went onto the floor (carpeted, of course) and the aforementioned pants. 

This may be why the military never used me for munitions handling. It also explains why I spent only one year in Little League, was always the last person picked for a team, and why my dearest friends don’t recommend cycling or skating as a recreation.  

Not that this stops me from trying stuff.  

In the Navy, I was known as a good troubleshooter—though, if possible, they’d have someone else work on the equipment. I think it was one too many screws dropped in the electrical switchgear. When helping a church build a school, they wisely decided that someone else should be using the cool nail gun that used a little explosive to nail wood into steel. The Habitat for Humanity manager allowed me to switch from nailing (this time with a normal hammer) after watching me bend three of every four nails and had me instead install the doorknobs. (Yes, I dropped the screws a few times, but they were easy to find.) 

The point of this is that we all have our areas of “suboptimal” performance. When that happens there are three things we can do.  

We can change course a bit: I succeeded with the church school, Habitat for Humanity build, and the Navy. We just had to modify how I helped. 

If that doesn’t work, you can accept your shortcomings and have fun anyway. In the marching band, I wasn’t all that good a player, but they didn’t mind a deficient bass drummer (no one else wanted to do it) so that’s where I had fun. In Curling (the Scottish sport with the big stones) I wasn’t good enough for a competitive team when it came to tournaments, so I’d build one out of the other misfits. We had fun and the other teams had fun beating us. And let’s just say my ceramic creations aren’t going to win a prize, but I enjoy building them (thanks, Pam)—even if they do end up in the garden somewhere.  

And lastly you can quit that activity. The key here is to not stop there, but to find another and keep going.  

Just get out there and enjoy life.