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What Special Olympics Taught Me about My Perfectionism
I attended a Special Olympics basketball game the other night and I learned so much.
My experience with basketball is limited. I played basketball on a team for one season in middle school. I didn’t understand any of it. I was terrible at it. Growing up with a single mom, we never even watched sports. I had no idea what I was doing and it was incredibly frustrating.
I had a huge respect for the athletes on the court the other night.
I joined the basketball team in middle school, because my friends were basketball players. I was trying to fit in. The coach and the other players spoke in what sounded like a foreign language to me. They would run plays called “Michigan Blue”. I don’t know what that meant. It was a secret to our opponent but it was also a secret to me. Was “Blue” right or left? What was I supposed to do?
Sometimes I was supposed to “set a pick”. I didn’t know what this meant either. How would standing still help the ball get in the hoop? On the other hand, I didn’t know how to make a lay up. Perhaps this is the easiest, most beginner, way to make a basket? Except which hand was I supposed to use? Which foot did I jump off of? I never got it right. It didn’t come naturally. I was always thinking, counting step 1, 2, 3. It’s a fast moving game, and there was no…
