Seeing the game from a new field

Whenever I tell people that I played baseball growing up, the first question most people ask is, "What position?"  Simple question, simple answer, right?  Ehhh...

The problem is that I didn't really have a position.  Since 2002, when I was 11 and when kids really start getting locked into positions, I've been all over the place.  Quick look: 2002 - SS for the Keystone Display Braves, 3B/1B for the Crystal Lake American Little League All-Stars.  2003 - SS for the Keystone Expos, 1B/C for CLALL.  2004 - 3B for the CL Cyclones.  2005 - 2B for the Cyclones.  2006 - RF for Crystal Lake Central, 2B for the Cyclones, 2007 - CF for CLC, 2B for the Cyclones.  2008 - RF for CLC, 2009 - LF for CLC.  For those of you scoring at home, that's 6-5-3-6-3-2-5-4-9-4-8-4-9-7.

Now, every time I moved, the coach would always say, "it's great that you can play so many positions," which I'm pretty sure was only the first half of a sentence that should have ended with, "because you sure as hell don't excel at any of them."

Young William not excelling in right field in 2008

So when I answer the question I always tell people that I moved around a lot, which is true, but also leaves me without a true identity and makes me sound like a tee ball player, ("Mom!  I got to play six positions and we got juice boxes!") but I also take a lot of pride in it.  Why?  Because when circumstances changed, I was able to adjust in order to change with them.

One of the toughest things to do in the real world is to keep an open mind about things.  It's much easier to entrench yourself in an opinion, a mindset, and an identity, and never give in to the concept that maybe, possibly, there are better options out there.  Humans, it seems, are proud beings, stubborn beings, and defensive beings, which combines into the perfect storm of closed-mindedness.  Why think when we can react?  Why even bother listening to other people's opinions when we could ignore them and pound our own even deeper into our brains.

Truth is, nobody is absolutely, 100% correct about everything.  Nobody knows how to solve every problem that's out there, nobody knows who God is, nobody knows how to completely stop Aaron Rodgers, nobody has written the best novel of all time, nobody has painted the best picture of all time, nobody knows why Tiger Woods betrayed Elin Steve Williams, nobody knows the meaning of life, nobody knows who Jack the Ripper was, nobody knows why LeBron James is such a gigantic douche, nobody knows how I Can't Believe It's Not Butter can't be at least a little bit butter, and nobody knows how they get so much cheese into a Cheez-It.  There are millions of theories on every topic, but not one is absolutely accepted by everyone because they're not facts.

So why do people insist that they do?

I know, I know.  Proud, stubborn, defensive.  But what do we gain from that?  It's hard to put aside our personal pride sometimes, but when things change, be it in ourselves, the people we're interacting with, or our surroundings, if we stay stagnant we're going to become irrelevant.  If I'm playing second and a better second baseman comes along, I won't play if I insist on being a second baseman.  I'll get moved to the bench, and eventually get cut.  But I can still play the game if I'm willing to move elsewhere.  A "position change" doesn't have to be a total shift in mindset, it just means that we can be willing to adjust our perspective based on additional information.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't hold onto our opinions about things.  Just because somebody disagrees doesn't mean that we should automatically change to agree with them.  I just think that we should be open-minded enough to know that, chances are, our opinion isn't the strongest or best one out there.  There are probably other things to consider, and it's okay to consider them.  It's okay to believe that there might be better options out there than the one we have.

[Note from Mom]:  "You should tie this into evolution.  The most adaptable, not the strongest, are the ones who survive."

Brilliant woman, brilliant statement.  And she's right.  Dinosaurs, if you take the extreme example, were much more powerful than apes.  A dinosaur could tear an ape to pieces.  But they couldn't adjust to shifts in the climate, so they disappeared.  They stuck to their cold-blooded, flesh-tearing guns and it didn't work, while apes were able to survive and turn into baseball players because they didn't have any one method of survival.  I'm sure that their lifestyle pre-Ice Age was much different than the one they chose during the Ice Age, and they lived to tell the tale.  The dinosaurs didn't adjust, got put on the bench, and then the Great Coach in the Sky decided that they ran out of innings.