Drop the Ball

I had a very wise friend who had done a lot of work on herself. We used to talk constantly about my struggles and, having gone through a lot, she had a lot of advice. One day she gave me an analogy that has stuck with me since that day and when my head starts going crazy, I often remind myself of what she told me:

Just because someone tosses you a ball, doesn’t mean you have to catch it.

As I sit here now, I can visualize the ball coming at me and instinctively, I put out my hands to catch it. It’s natural. It’s typical. It’s what we all do. If you see something coming at you, you catch it.

But what she was trying to tell me is that we can resist that instinct. We can say “hey, I have a choice. I don’t have to catch the ball just because it’s thrown to me. I can choose to let it drop to the ground. I can even choose to block it, smack it away or tip it to someone else. I have a choice.”

So when someone says “don’t drop the ball” or when someone tosses a ball to you and you don’t feel like playing, make a choice that works for you and catch the ball only if you want to. You have a choice.