Curveballs - Lessons on Life #1

You know that saying, life has a way of throwing you curveballs? It’s true!

Most professional baseball players can hit the fastball well — as long as it is not too fast — but they can have trouble with the curve. (great Clint Eastwood movie, by the way).

Why are curveballs harder to hit? If you know it is curving, can’t you just follow it and swing accordingly? Well, It’s not so easy for several reasons:

• First, You don’t know when a curveball is coming (called a switch up)
• They can come at you at varying speeds.
• They can curve early in the pitch or late in the pitch
• And they can drop fast or slow, or up or down, or, inside or outside, or all at the same time.

In other words, it tricks you. It is unpredictable. It throws you off guard when you are expecting the more common pitch, the fastball. Ah, there is probably the key. Not only is it curving, but you are expecting a fastball.

Today, I was thrown a curveball.

In two weeks, my daughter is going on a mission/service trip called World Race as a gap year experience between high school and college where they will go to 6 different countries over 9 months. Needless to say, it ain’t cheap, and she’s been working hard raising and making the needed money. I am extremely proud of her!

I told her months ago how much money I could contribute as Dad, but like most projects surprise expenses keep coming up.
One such expense we weren’t ready for is the high costs of special vaccinations required for international travel and living abroad, like Yellow Fever, Typhoid, Malaria pills, and others. When we left the clinic this morning I had paid three times as much as expected. There’s that word, expected — I expected a “fastball”, but was thrown a curveball. CURVEBALL NUMBER ONE!

On the hour-long drive home my daughter and I were discussing money and preparation expenses still needed for her trip…. BAM!

I hit a big piece of metal in the middle of the highway going 75 MPH. It had just bounced out of the back of a truck and I only had time to swerve just enough to not hit it head on. A perfectly good back tire was still blown, and I am now the unhappy owner of a busted up wheel estimated to put me back an unexpected $300. CURVEBALL TWO!

It’s time for a fastball! For “normal”.

FASTBALL: I had a good spare and all the tools needed to change the tire, and changed it in record time. My daughter was a big help, too.

I must pause and admit that we both sat in the car for a few minutes starring, almost stunned, until we finally expressed our frustration (and anger at the truck driver from which the metal flew out, if honest). My daughter cried and I let out a long, loud “Ahhhhhhhhh…….”, hitting the steering wheel with both fists. I don’t curse, but if I did, that would have been the moment. Later, my daughter commented how we each expressed our frustration respective of our personalities. She was right.

Note: At this point in baseball, the batter has no idea how to guess what kind of pitch is next? Which is the objective.

I expected the trip for vaccinations to be about three hours..three hours max out of my day. Three hours will turn into seven, when all said and done. (Includes going to the tire shop) The day was messed up! It was not what I planned. Not expected! CURVEBALL THREE for sure.

Three curveballs in one day!

What is it with life and curveballs?

Back to our baseball analogy. While most pitchers throw more fastballs than curveballs, some, like one of my favorite Texas Rangers’ pitchers, Alex Claudio, are the opposite, throwing more curveballs. He only throws fastballs less than 2% of the time. His norm IS the curveball or slider, not fastballs.

Maybe we should change our thinking. Maybe our expectations are wrong, or, sometimes, down right unrealistic. What is “normal”? What can we count on? I think there are indeed a few things we can count on, but……

Does life ever JUST throw you fastballs?

It seems to me that life is more like Alex Claudio. The “norm”, what we should expect, are curveballs. Life always throws curveballs.

But, then again, if we start to expect curveballs as the norm, we would have to change the expression to “Sometimes, life throws you a fastball!”

Someone wise once said that “life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it”. Erma Bombeck said that “if life is like a bowl of cherries, what am I doing in the pits?” Stuff happens! expect it. How are you responding to it? I sense a future post..

BASE HIT! My son works at Discount Tire and I get a 30% discount as a family member. I also discovered that I bought road hazard insurance on the tire (just the tire, not the wheel) and it will be replaced for free.

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