Keep Your Eye on the Ball

“Keep your eye on the ball” not only applies to sports, but also to life. A few years ago I played a lot of tennis and had a tennis coach to help me play better. She was quite good, not only at playing tennis and teaching it, but also helping with mental strategies which were useful in life. In a way she was my life coach. Perhaps I learned more of life’s lessons than how to improve my tennis game. Marlie would come to the net and say, “Linda, you must keep your eye on the ball. You know what I mean.” Sometimes the best way to explain a concept is to say what happens when you don’t do it. Here are some signs your eye is not on the ball in tennis or in life:

• You pick a place to hit the ball before your eye has truly seen the ball.
• You run through the ball and miss it.
•  You worry about winning the point.

To keep your eye on the ball means that you must see the ball and stay with it through contact with it. In life it is the equivalent of following through on what you see – your vision. We have the opportunity to focus and live in the present. When we get ahead we lose the opportunity to be open to what truly is happening to us.

For instance I love to walk near ponds and lakes where there are many kinds of wonderful animals and birds all around. The lake has some egrets and herons and once you see one you can see many other kinds of birds. Your eyes are open to crows and a line of turtles sun-bathing on a fallen tree branch. There are opportunities each day to live and if we practice seeing what is important to us in the game of life then we will have learned a lot. And just when you think you know where your life is going it can change.

That’s okay. That’s what balls do. Balls travel where we aren’t. We are often scrambling to find what we are looking for. Stay with it and you will find it again.  Keep focused and you will be able to begin again.

(Photo: Dapper Dan peering in through the window at Hemingway. Each one’s eyes were on the other. This blog was published in 2016, but it’s always good to think about balls as a World Series begins. Watch and see when a player thinks the ball is in his glove and it isn’t.)