The Difference Between Commitment and Stupidity
Laying on the tennis court, I screamed. Primal, gutwrenching — I channeled every molecule of oxygen into it until there was nothing left.
But it wasn’t the pain that hurt.
What Great Heights…?
I was playing tennis for 2–3 hours / day plus an hour of cross training. I was warming up and cooling down between every workout. I ran 4.1miles in 22:30, or 5:20 per mile, as a tempo run.
In short — I was in the best damn shape of my life.
I was also petrified of being injured. Strengthening shoulders. Rotator cuff. Lifting. Stretching. Tracking workouts and taking days off. You name it, I did it.
You see, I was out for 1.5 years for a mystery calf injury that doctors were sure was compartment syndrome (it wasn’t), and then fought back against a rotator cuff injury that stopped me from serving the entire first year I was back to tennis.
I also know that I’m getting older, and I don’t have time to be injured if I want to push my limits as an athlete.
So when I fell going for a standard backhand and watched the swelling in my left ankle grow to the size of a large orange, I wasn’t watching the injury.
I was watching my dreams wave goodbye.
Depression and Denial
The first thing that happened was a serious case of depression. I didn’t want to do anything. I didn’t care what I ate. Hell, I didn’t even want to play tennis again because I was afraid that, even if I did all the rehab work, this could happen again. And again. And then I’d have a chronic issue for the rest of my life.
I questioned everything, and I had no answers. Just a black boot on my foot, staring back at me.
I also got to experience the wonderful hospital / insurance situation we have as I talked with 5 different doctors about what to do.
Two of them could have been asleep as they gave me generic advice, and am pretty sure if I told them my foot had fallen off they would have said the same thing. I held one of them hostage with questions on my iPhone as he literally stood in the door frame trying to leave, where I learned not to schedule doctor appointments around 12p, because a hungry stomach takes precedence over actual care.
I fought to get an MRI for a week, which the doctors said was “totally not necessary, it will just show torn ligaments,” but as an athlete, I needed to know the full extent of the damage so I could at least guard against it in the future.
Result: one partially torn ATFL, one fully torn CFL, and more depression.
The Difference Between Stupidity and Commitment
You see the commercials of top athletes getting injured, training, and coming back. You see stories and montages of someone truly terrible at a sport then becoming the best.
But, by definition, we can’t all be the best.
So it made me wonder: when does the admirable trait of commitment devolve into stupidity?
When there’s no hope, yet someone is still trying and trying? When you wish you could yell at them, “For gods sake, just quit already!”
And where was I on that spectrum? I remember vividly an email I got from a pro player ranked ~1000 in the world saying I was mentally insane. Literally.
Unfortunately, you have 0.000000000000001% chance to make it to the U.S. Open qualifying.
I’m sorry.
My advice: seek professional mental counseling to get over your dream of reaching the U.S. Open and pursue your film making career, because you clearly have talent there. Also your goal of reaching the Qualies of the U.S. Open is a horrible long term goal because it means you’ll be ranked 250ish in the world and not earning nearly enough prize money to cover your annual expenses. You’ll be LOSING a TON of money.
Was he right?
Why I Play
Revisiting this email was actually the most helpful part of the mental-healing process. It reminded me why I started to play again in the first place:
I need to see what I’m capable of — just for me.
There are very few chances in life where you get to push yourself to the limit. I decided 2.5 years ago that I wanted to test myself as an athlete before I get too old. What could I do if I put everything on the line?
It doesn’t matter if I make the US Open or not. It doesn’t matter if I can never even get an ATP point.
What matters, and what drives me, is to see what I can do.
I play for me, and no one else.
