Getting Old and Worse at Sports

Not catching this ball

Anyone that is older than me will likely say, “you’re not that old.”  30 years old isn’t that old when compared to an entire life but the body doesn’t reach its peak at the midway point.  What I’ve noticed is that I’m getting worse in just about anything I do that involves hand eye coordination or moving.

There are professional athletes who play well into their 30’s and can still be productive but usually not at as high a level as their 20’s.  Isiah Thomas retired at the ripe age of 32.  Barry Sanders at 30.  Even MJ retired at 30 (the first time).  The reason athletes retire is because they can’t play at the level they once played at.  When you don’t feel like you are effective anymore, you give a reason like I’m too old and retire.  This helps your mind and is an excuse for being worse than you once were.

[dropcap background=”yes” color=”#333333″]Just remember when you’re over the hill, you begin to pick up speed.[/dropcap]

I look back at my youth and was once a pretty sound basketball player.  This clip has me scoring 6 points in a quarter back when I was 13.  I don’t even score 6 points in a game nowadays.  When I was young, and admittedly would play way more basketball than I do now, I would go as far and say I was actually good at basketball.  I play today and my arms feel like they are the wrong size for my body and the ball feels like a balloon.

This is for a number of reasons one of which I already mentioned, I don’t play as often.  Which leads to the obvious question, are your skills declining or are you not practicing enough?  Like many answers to questions, both.  Here’s the kicker, I don’t practice anything!  Aside from playing a lot of beer pong throughout my 20’s, I don’t take any activity seriously.  This in turn has left me with a feeling of uselessness in most everything I do.

Games are all the same.  You start off learning the game.  Then you start practicing the game.  Then you start playing the game at as high a level as you can.  I’ve played hundreds of games and what happens time after time is you plateau in the game and then comes a crucial point where you either 1) devote more time to start mastering the nuances of the game or 2) quit.  I quit.  I like to think of myself as a jack of all trades but master of none.  Meaning that I’m respectable at most things, but am never the best.

In a society where people only care about winning, it makes getting worse at things suck.  Am I exaggerating a bit in this post?  Yes.  I guarantee if I wanted to concentrate on shooting a basketball for 40 hours a week, I would improve and this post would have no meaning whatsoever.  The point is though that when you get older, life gets in the way.  You slave away at a job for 40 hours and leisure activities fade.  Next thing you know you’re 50 years old wondering where time went.  Is there a point to this post?  I don’t know.  I think it’s even though you suck, you should still have fun doing it.  Unfortunately sucking is frustrating as hell and makes people make blog posts.