On Two Joyces and the Elephant

"Safe!" - Jim Joyce, Umpire
"A man's errors are the portals of discovery." - James Joyce, Writer
"Do not carry with you your mistakes. Do not carry your cares." - The Buddha (in the Elephant verse of the Dhammapada)

The dharmaspoon guy has too short an attention span for baseball, but all he has heard about from his co-workers since Thursday has been talk of a bad call by the veteran umpire, Jim Joyce, at a Major League Baseball game between the Tigers and the Indians that resulted in the Tiger's pitcher, Armando Galarraga being "Robbed" of a perfect game (one in which not a single member of the opposing team was credited with a hit), which is pretty rare and kind of a big deal.


Following the game, the umpire was able to watch a video of the call and admitted it was a bad call, and apologized to Galarraga. Footage of the umpire in the aftermath of the game showed a humbled, sad man who showed remorse over the mistake. Scheduled to umpire the following day for the same two teams at the same stadium, he showed up to a mostly supportive crowd (although had to endure some booing). The pitcher came out and publicly shook Joyce's hand and patted him on the back. The game went on without a hitch.


For fans of baseball, no doubt it would have been a beautiful thing for the Tigers to have their first perfect game, but for people everywhere, what a great example has been set for how to conduct yourself after a mistake has been made. First, there's Joyce, who admitted he was wrong, apologized, and then showed up the next day and did the best job he could do. Next, there's Galarraga, who accomplished something great in the sport, yet will not be officially recognized for it, yet handled his disappointment with dignity and grace: in the immediate aftermath, he actually just smiled and then walked away. Finally, there are the majority of the fans, who recognized that Joyce represents our basic humanity, that despite our best efforts, we sometimes make mistakes.

The Elephant

"Do not carry with you your mistakes. Do not carry with you your cares." - The Dhammapada

"Perfection is the lowest standard a human could ever take on because it is unattainable; therefore you ultimately have no standard at all." - Anthony Robbins

For years when I played dog agility, if I would make a mistake, and I would always make a mistake because there is no such thing as a perfect run, I would focus on it, obsess over it, let it weigh on me, let it color the whole rest of the trial. Then I learned about the trap of perfection - that if our goal is to be perfect, you set yourself up for failure and will never be happy. I confused perfection with progress and with satisfaction with what went right. Now, when I look at the results of a run, I focus on what went right. I think about things in terms of what percent of the run went well. Instead of all or nothing, it's shades of gray. I don't ignore when things go wrong, but I look at them as pointers of what I need to focus on in training instead of personal failures. It's much more fun that way. As we enter the second week of the Winter Olympics, my favorite moments have been watching athletes just be happy with their performance, regardless of place.