Learn to appreciate the lows

First things first: we lost our first round doubles match last night.  The good news is that we took it to a 3rd set tiebreaker and really played better than we thought we would.  It was a competitive 4.5 match and considering that it was our first time playing together, plus the fact that John hasn’t played much in the last five years, we weren’t too disappointed.

The bad news is that we did blow a 4-0 lead in the 3rd set and later served for the match at 5-4 in the final set.  No matter what the situation is, losing a match where you have a few chances to win is tough to swallow.

I was talking to my friend Ted after the match and as I was groaning about losing another 3-setter and he made a really good point.  He said,

“I always try to appreciate the lows as much as I appreciate the highs.”

My translation of this was: the highs will come if you learn something from the lows, so you might as well take it in stride.

This seemed to put everything in perspective for me – at least for the time being.  I lost two 3-set matches in this tournament and on top of being out the $60, I’m disappointed that I won’t be competing any further than the first round.

Ted’s point is important.  It helped me realized that if I just look at this tournament as just a couple more losses, I don’t gain anything.  But if I take a little time and at least reflect and learn something from the losses then use it as motivation then I can actually get some value for the $60 bones I shelled out to take this beating.

I don’t know if this makes sense, but it’s making sense to me for the time being.  So there.