Another Confrontation
Tuesday night presented another confrontation stretch. Will try my best to minimize story.
It happened at softball. The field was wet and the umpire canceled the game due to a sink hole that had formed in front of first base. He said it wasn’t safe. I agreed it wasn’t safe, but I didn’t think we should have canceled the game. I thought we should have found a way to play around the sink hole. Throw a pylon on it. Throw a mat on it. Run around it. Etc. It pisses me off how safety obsessed everyone is. “I just don’t want anyone getting hurt,” he said. I said “Anyone who plays accepts that risk. So what if someone gets hurt? Then they’ll heal.”
I actually didn’t say this. I just thought it.
Further, I was disappointed in myself and my teammates and the opposing team for not pushing back more assertively against the umpire’s decision to cancel the game. I felt like we could have persuaded him to play with a little more persistence. Instead we were all passive in our acceptance of his ruling and seemed happy enough to simply complain about it but not actually work to change it.
My own personal integrity was being violated left right and center.
First, I didn’t speak up. I didn’t speak my mind when I had the chance. It doesn’t even matter if I was wrong and he was right. I don’t even care if I’m wrong. I just want to have enough integrity to say what I think and not hold it in like a pussy. I didn’t do that and I was disappointed in myself.
On confrontation: I have a very complex relationship with it. I have an unhealthy relationship with the emotion of anger (working on it, childhood thing) that fuels my unhealthy relationship with confrontation. It really crippled me in my teens and twenties. I would avoid confrontation. In my early thirties I learned of this tendency and decided I had to reverse the trend. I’ve become very mindful of my fear of confrontation. Nowadays I can spot it arising in the moment - and make a conscious choice to either continue to avoid it, or pivot on the spot and lean into the fight. Lately, I’ve been leaning into the fight a lot more. I’ve embraced confrontation. I’ve embraced it at work at play and at home. It’s led to some difficult conversations and a ton of self analysis and things haven’t always worked out the way I want, and even in some cases my reputation has weakened in the eyes of others -- BUT AT LEAST I have my integrity. I can live with myself knowing I’ve spoken my truth. Even if I’m wrong. I’d rather be wrong than quiet.
Let me say that again: I’d rather be wrong than quiet.
Here’s why:
When I’m wrong and I speak up someone will tell me I’m wrong. I’ll then get to chew on that and I’ll most certainly learn from the experience and come away from it a better man. When I’m quiet I just continue being wrong, silently, forever.
I’m scared to rock the boat. But I have to rock the boat. Things don’t go away on their own. Today’s confrontation creates tomorrow’s calm.
Confrontation creates calm, later. It is such a massive skill. I’m really working on mastering it. I really am.
There are lots of people who are involved in confrontation regularly (you know the type) who suck at it. Just because someone is confrontational by nature, doesn’t mean they are a masterful confrontationalist. It’s a skill to be mastered. Because if I can master it: what a weapon. The ability to consciously push that button. To consciously lean into the fight. It’s about speaking up for myself, standing my ground, getting what I want, learning, growing.
Some people think a wise person stays quiet. That may be true, sometimes. I would challenge them and say: are you quiet because you’re wise are are you quiet because you’re afraid? OK, you’re quiet. Just don’t complain to me later about how shitty things are. You’re not wise, you’re trampled.
One part of the night I’m proud of myself for is after the game was called and the team was just hanging out in the dugout. The umpire was in the parking lot in his truck. I was venting my frustration to the bys. One of them said “Bryan, you’re a father now, you have to stop being such a pussy.” Amazing advice. Bys tell it like it is. I am a pussy a lot of the time. “I know!” I said. “Why don’t you go talk to the umpire right now?” he said. “I should!” I said. “OK, I’m going to go talk to him,” I said. And I started to walk towards his truck.
Bys laughing at me. On account of the obvious psychological fire this incident had lit. Welcome to my life. Most of the bys were cool calm and collected. I wasn’t.
I realized something as I walked: It was too late. I couldn’t change his mind at this point. I had missed my chance to speak up and effect change about 10 minutes earlier when the ump’s decision was in the process of being made. So why was I on my way over to talk to him now? At this point my ego had taken over. I wanted to speak my mind as a way to satiate my integrity. In the moment I was thinking “at least I can rest easy knowing I said my piece and I didn’t chicken out.” But at that point I was doing it for the wrong reasons. I wasn’t doing it for the team so we could play ball. I was doing it to save my own face (from myself and my own inner-criticisms, later. Uuck). It would have been a total ego-move to approach the umpire at his truck. Talking to the ump while he was making his decision would have been respectable. Talking to the ump at his truck after he’d already made his decision and the teams had accepted it would have been a dick-move. I’m glad I was able to see this for what it was in the moment and stop myself.
I stopped walking towards the truck. I even said out loud “I’m only doing this for myself now, not for the team” and the bys agreed. And the bys laughed at me. And maybe some of them lost respect for me and probably think I’m an idiot. One thing I know for sure: they all know me a little better now.
I hope that my vulnerability here will eventually make us better teammates and friends. Even if it feels like a setback in the moment because my ego is hurt. As much as I want to be the cool calm and collected guy all the time. I’m not. It’s phony to pretend to be. Sometimes stuff pisses me off and I’m upset irrational and out to lunch.
What really happened here? The truth is I wanted to play ball so so bad Tuesday night. I’d been looking forward to it all week. When the umpire called the game off I was very SAD about it. This sadness was expressed via my frustration and anger towards the ump’s decision, even though he was making the right choice, and I was wrong. It helps to identify sadness as the prevailing emotion in this entire story.
What I’d do differently next time: My intent is to a) recognize the emotion that is driving my behavior as soon as possible b) speak my mind at the right time. Even if I’m wrong. It’s OK to be wrong, it’s not OK to be quiet when I have a burning desire to speak. c) develop and practice the skill of identifying the right time to speak up. d) reflect on the aftermath of the confrontation, as leaning in will most certainly have altered the trajectory of events and given me lots to chew on and process in reflection. e) grow from the whole experience be wiser and smarter and a better person. f) let it go.
Possible Actions:
Buy a rake and shovel and donate it to the team
Buy a rake and shovel and donate it to the field
Write a letter to the town requesting they store field repair equipment in the shed that every team can use
Drive to the field an hour before the game on days when it has been raining and fix the sink hole myself
Write a letter to the umpire expressing my thanks and appreciation for his work and decision making
