#23: Being Bad at Things I Hate
An epiphany about happiness and anti-optimization on the pickleball court
I revisited middle school P.E. last weekend. In a mental, spiritual, and emotional capacity, that is. I’ve been dodging invitations to play pickleball for years, feigning scheduling conflicts and obligations. My bluff was finally called last month when I got roped into a nearly two-hour lesson under the guise of a beach day.1
Now, I’m not pickleball averse. I love that the sport is sweeping the nation, sucking in every child, yuppie, and retiree in its path. I’ve yet to be affected by court territory wars or noise violations. I find the camaraderie charming. Dink on, precious pals!!!!!! I cheer.
My reasons for avoidance are of the self-preservation variety. You see, when the universe was passing out hand-eye coordination and reflexes, I must have taken in a late matinee and missed the appointment. I have neither. Watching me catch any type of item is like watching a golden retriever get pegged in the face by a tennis ball. I was the only kid in my P.E. class to fail the reaction time test on the Presidential Fitness evaluation—the test that is literally catching a ruler as it slides through your palm. You do not want me driving your getaway car, let’s leave it at that.
I had no choice but to sally forth with this pickleball + beach outing. I entertained the fantasy that perhaps, divorced from my gangly teenage form and strengthened with yoga and walking and Keech Peach YouTube tutorials, I might actually be good at pickling. Maybe my years of eschewing pick-up games were an overreaction. Maybe I’d lost out on valuable community building because of my own insecurities! Maybe pickleball was my holy redeemer!
HOW WRONG I WAS.
Sweating under the midday sun, missing shot after shot and glazing over at the coach’s many (kindly) critiques, I wanted to expire on the spot. “Nice leave, good eye,” he kept saying, no doubt scraping the barrel to find something positive to say about this obvious lost cause. It took me half the lesson to realize he was commending me for not going after balls that were headed out of bounds. Misplaced praise, because this was NOT intentional. I was simply lazy and slow and marred with poor peripheral vision.
As he jabbered on with my more adept classmates about keeping score (moot, because what points was I winning, sir), I retreated into myself thinking of Victoria Beckham, poster child for Sports Apathy, married to a footballer. I thought (longingly) of the fine arts center across the parking lot, where children were probably painting sea shells or paper mâché-ing life-size dolphins. I thought, If only you people could see me in an artistic environment, I am not the talentless hack athletic competitions make me appear!!! I thought, the second this lesson ends I will be the happiest woman on planet earth and I will Never Experience Pickling Frustration and Humiliation Again.
With that, the most sparkly, beautiful realization unfolded like a blanket in my mind: I don’t like this, I am bad at this, and I do not have to improve at this if I don’t want to. Posh Spice certainly wouldn’t! I played out the rest of the lesson with a newfound buoyancy, parabola-ing wayward balls every place but the kitchen2…. and not feeling any type of way about it. Good-bye pickleball, hello richly deserved seaside afternoon.
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Earlier this year, I came across a David Epstein (author of Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World) piece on happiness, based on psychologist Hillel Einhorn’s research into the subject. Einhorn posits that happiness is a 2x2 matrix made up of things we Want, Don’t Want, Have, and Don’t Have. We put a lot of energy into the Want/Don’t Have and Don’t Want/Have quadrants and grow apathetic to items in the Want/Have category. Yet we don’t pay nearly enough attention to Don’t Want/Don’t Have, an area ripe for gratitude and joy. This made sense on a theoretical level, but upon my pickleballing excursion, it took on new meaning. I reimagined my own matrix, this time organizing activities and hobbies based on aptitude and enjoyment:
In thinking about Einhorn’s matrix, I realized I spend a lot of time camped out in Quadrant III (Not Good At, Don’t Like) trying to nudge things to I, II, or IV. I considered why this might be. For better or for worse, throughout my life I’ve surrounded myself with high achievers. By many metrics, I am a high achiever. The downside to residing in this metaphorical zip code is that I often feel immense pressure to optimize every facet of myself: personality, looks, intelligence, capabilities, professionalism.3 Couple that with a culture that prizes productivity, speed, and effortlessness, I’ve always felt insecure or apologetic about at least one aspect of my life. This meant that for many years I chose to bone up on a deficiency instead of honing a natural skill or passion.
The Pickleball Epiphany felt like permission to abandon that notion. Why do I try so hard to be good at things that don’t come naturally, things that I actively loathe? Might I be more at peace if I simply didn’t bother to improve?
This (relevant) Nicola Jane Hobbs quote landed in my inbox at the right time:
Growing up, I never knew a relaxed woman. Successful women? Yes. Productive women? Plenty. Anxious and afraid and apologetic women? Heaps of them. But relaxed women? At-ease women? Women who don’t dissect their days into half hour slots of productivity? Women who prioritize rest and pleasure and play? Women who aren’t afraid to take up space in the world? Women who give themselves unconditional permission to relax? Without guilt? Without apology? Without feeling like they need to earn it? I’m not sure I’ve ever met a woman like that. But I would like to become one.
A relaxed woman! How nice does that sound? “Maximizing efficiencies” is not in a relaxed woman’s vocabulary, I bet. She’s not picking up running because she feels like she should.4 And she probably isn’t thinking about the new line that’s deepening on her forehead or how her nose photographs in pictures. Like Nicola, I want to be that generative, at-ease woman, pouring my energy into creating and other things I love. Not the things I lack.
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The takeaway here isn’t to quit an activity at the first sign of adversity, fear, or discomfort. Nor is it to attach limiting labels to yourself like, “I’m bad at math so I will never be able to run a financial projection.” This is where self-knowledge and behavior recognition is key. In tracking down David Epstein’s piece on Einhorn, I actually discovered another essay that addresses this. He reflects on psychologist Brian Little’s concept of “free” personality traits, an idea that “while you undoubtedly have certain fixed proclivities, you can overcome them when something is important to you — a ‘core project.’”5
In other words, mastering less-than-ideal means to get to a satisfying and desirable end. Like if my only opportunity to make friends in a new city was through a pickleball league, I might grab a paddle and start practicing. I might even learn to enjoy it!
Otherwise, for now, I think a pop culture trivia team might be more my speed.
Sidewalk Reporting
Taking a break from writing this essay, I took a walk and stumbled upon this pickleball merchandise in the wild. Two words for you: DAY DINKER.
Thank you for reading! See you next week where my short-form trend essays get a little rebrand ¨̮
Kindly disregard typos, as they are actually small prayers to the universe that one day my writing will support an editor’s salary
Important context, I’ve never met a beach day I didn’t like. On seaside trips I’m legally obligated to disclose to friends or family that I will not voluntarily leave the beach. Someone needs to initiate and coax me away with the promise of dinner/ice cream/priority shower privileges
For those of you fortunate enough to not be humiliated on a pickleball court, the “kitchen” is the little corridor at the front of the net where you are ***ideally*** sending your shots
This rampant self-criticism also normalizes the (unattractive) inclination to criticize others under the pretense of helpful advice & process improvement. Unsolicited feedback from overachievers: a topic for a different newsletter!!!!!!!!!!
Buy me a drink and I WILL tell you another embarrassing sports-related anecdote in which I joined a beginner’s running club with disastrous results
I love that the concept of “free traits” also substantiates the importance of playing in the Not Good At/Enjoy quadrant. We’re happy to be seen looking foolish building something if we care about it and want to get better at it