How Taking A Break From Pool To Immerse Myself In Pool Gave Me Perspective
I used to get SO angry.
I’ve always been insanely competitive when it comes to sports. I love to win, I hate to lose, and I have no problem wearing my emotions on my sleeves. If you haven’t met me before, just take it at face value that winning is the only thing that matters to me when I’m playing, regardless of which sport it is.
I first started playing pool casually in 2007. Prior to that, I had been a bowler my whole life. My bowling history probably deserves its own blog post at some point in the future, but suffice it to say, I bowled very competitively for 25 years prior to picking up pool.
I was first introduced to pool by my friend Marc, who asked me to join his team in the San Francisco Pool Association league, an LGBT pool league that might be one of the most well-organized leagues in the country. At first, I didn’t know if I wanted to play given how busy I was with bowling as my main extracurricular activity, but I said why the hell not. I had remembered playing pool in my grandpa’s basement while growing up as a kid, and really enjoyed it.
Marc’s team was very low-key — just looking to have a good time on Tuesday nights. The problem was, I have this competitive drive in me that won’t let me simply just have a good time casually playing any sport — even if it’s something I’ve rarely done before. I want to be the best at whatever I do, and for me, pool was going to be no different.
I started out my first season 0–10, and 1–18, with my only win coming when my opponent scratched on the 8-ball. Pretty sad. I had no idea what the hell I was doing or what was required to be a good player.
Over time, I worked hard on my game, took lessons from a great instructor, and practiced practiced practiced. I also began playing more competitive tournaments where the competition was better and stronger than I was, and even started playing others for money. Both of these things really helped season me and made playing in more casual environments even easier (when you’re playing someone race to 5 for $100, it makes playing a casual game on a Tuesday night league a walk in the park).
When I was winning (which started to become much more frequently), the euphoria of seeing everything I worked for come to fruition was exhilarating. When I lost, I didn’t want to talk to anyone, I didn’t want to socialize, and I didn’t want to face the unbearable pain that I wasn’t perfect. All I wanted to do was beat myself up for “not being good enough” and constantly tell myself that I suck.
And this feeling wouldn’t just happen when I had already lost — it would happen while I was in the middle of losing a match or encountering bad luck. Just lost a game I thought I should have won? I was a loser. Got a bad roll after making a great shot? Perfect opportunity to tell myself that I was cursed. See an opponent get a great roll on a lousy shot? An even better opportunity to kick myself. I’d be talking to myself, cursing what was going on, looking disgustedly at those around me, and doing pretty much everything except exhibiting good sportsmanship.
There were times when I would take breaks from pool to get away from the game and clear my head (or times that I would take breaks from pool because I was so busy with work). Sometimes those breaks would help a little with my game, but oftentimes, I’d be mentally right back to where I was before taking that break — always on edge, always fragile, always ready to break down the moment anything bad happened.
Starting ZenSports has changed all of this for me.
First off, for all of January and February of this year, I was working 100 hour work weeks to get our app launched. So I literally had no time to play any pool at all. Secondly, by building a mobile app and running tournaments catered specifically to pool players, it allowed me to take a break from playing pool, while still immersing myself within pool. This scenario has opened my eyes up to several things:
- It brought me back to the fact that it’s just a game.
When we’re kids, we play sports because we love the game. As a kid, sure you’re competitive and want to win, but you play because you love being social with friends, you love getting exercise and physical activity, and you love getting the chance to work on perfecting a craft. Somewhere along the way, we lose that love of the game, and it becomes more “work” to constantly try and get better and win, at the expense of everything else.
By building ZenSports, it’s given me the perspective that all this competition stuff is just a game. It’s not curing cancer, it’s not building the next spaceship to find life on other planets, and it’s not even self-driving cars. It’s a game that is supposed to be fun and bring us closer together as humans. Mind-blowing I know, but something that was lost on me for years until just recently.
2. Nobody actually really cares that much how you perform.
Often, when we get locked in our own little competitive bubble of whatever sport or league or tournament we’re playing in, we think that others actually care as much about how we’re playing as we do.
False.
I hate to break it to you, but 99.99% of the world doesn’t give two shits that you just went 4–0 in your league night, or took first place in some local 9-ball tournament with 23 players. They’ve got their own lives, their own worries, and things that are way more important to think about than your latest table run.
I found this out the past few weeks as I’ve been running tournaments. For one, I don’t care who wins as a tournament director — I just want everyone to be going out and having a great time. Also, I see how other players are playing in their own matches and thinking about their status and how they’re doing. They don’t have time to think or care about what you’re doing. And while ZenSports is trying to make the sports world more open and transparent, I still don’t see ESPN rushing to televise your Wednesday night league to a national audience.
Does this mean you shouldn’t care? Of course you should care about how you play. But keep it in perspective — playing lousy today doesn’t mean you’ll play lousy tomorrow. And by tomorrow, everyone has already forgotten about what you’ve done today. Play for fun, play for yourself, and play to become a better human being.
3. Good sportsmanship DOES matter. Don’t be that guy/girl that everyone hates.
Running tournaments the past few weeks has opened my eyes up to pretty much every bad antic that players could possibly display (and then some). Some of it is funny and laughable, while some of it is just outright obnoxious. I’ve seen players run themselves right out of a match because you can tell they’re defeated by one bad roll, one bad game, or one bad external circumstance that they can’t control. Winning is pretty much impossible when you’re tense, frustrated, mad at yourself, mad at the world, etc.
But it’s not just that bad antics make you a worse player. They make you a worse human being. No one wants to play with someone that is throwing chalk, slamming down their cue, yelling at players, complaining about ratings, and exhibiting pretty much every possible piece of bad sportsmanship out there. Other people, including players, spectators, and directors will have a lot more respect for you if you carry yourself well — both when winning and losing.
So don’t be that guy or girl that everyone hates to play. You’re not gaining an edge and you’re not getting in someone’s head. You’re being a jerk that no one else wants to be around. Think about it this way: if the pool tables disappeared for an hour, and you had to socialize with everyone around you before they reappeared, would others want to grab a beer and talk to you? If not, you’re being an asshole. And if others around you are behaving poorly, that’s their problem — don’t make it your’s.
My recent “break” from playing pool while still being immersed in pool has done wonders for my attitude towards the game and towards life. I highly encourage everyone that’s out there that is starting to feel like the fun isn’t there anymore when playing, to step back and gain some perspective. Take a month off and go help your local pool hall run some leagues/tournaments. Watch and observe how players behave. Learn what to do and what not to do. Realize which kind of player you want to become and not become.
Most of all, go out and have fun. You’ll play better, and when you lose, it won’t be the end of the world. Because after all, it’s just a game.
