I did not ever think I would grow up to describe myself as a hockey player. I remember being alright at “getting the ball away” when playing floor hockey as a youngster. Some of the kids who knew things about hockey were angry that I never passed it to anyone, and they had every right to be. I was just flinging the ball as far away as I could.

I can also remember getting my two upper front teeth knocked in while playing floor hockey during Grade 11 or 12. One of them is porcelain now, and the root on the other fortunately survived. Thankfully there’s no gaps! From that day on until a few months ago, I pretty well stayed out of sports’ way.

Fast forward to today: I’m feeling a bit down on myself at work because I haven’t found the level of productivity I aspire to. Two particular kinds of decisions come up occasionally, and my annoying default response is to freeze up and find a distraction. If it’s a particularly tough little knot to figure out, I can burn a lot of time thinking, getting frustrated, finding something else to do, returning and reloading the mental context, then getting frustrated and removing myself again in a sort of loop.

This has got me thinking — just a bit — about the dreaded topic of “whether I should even be doing this kind of work at all”. In many other situations, I feel I can act quickly and land on my feet, but these ones just catch me. The first is the “should I write it one way or another” moment, and the second is far worse: “I wrote it the one way, but now I see the problems with it are bigger than I guessed… should I continue down this road despite the looming clouds, or undo my progress and try the other path? Maybe there is a third option that hasn’t occurred to me yet?” That one kills me. Especially when the “looming clouds” are something that appears time consuming, might still fail, and I don’t really know how to do it.

So anyway, back to hockey. It’s floor hockey, by the way — I’m not awesome enough to do this on skates yet — tonight I got a goal and a half, while playing defense. The first goal, the full goal, was a lucky shot that soared in under the crossbar. Felt great. I played a pretty solid game (for me) tonight: kept on people, cleared the ball to the right places, stopped lots of incoming attacks, and I didn’t get as out-of-breath as I have in the past.

I’ve only been doing this once a week for two or three months. When I started, I was dying by half-time, and I noticed very clearly how bad I was. It was still fun, but I felt like I was as much harm as good out there. That feeling kept on for a while, but it’s been less and less. I’ve made steady progress. But wait: I didn’t tell you about my other goal yet.

They got one on us, and we were already down by a few. It felt like we kept outsmarting and outplaying them, but something would slip and the ball would fly just perfectly off of legs or a mask into the net. A fluke of flukes! I felt angry — not at the other players, but at how we just couldn’t catch a break. The goalie passed me the ball and I started to bring it up; the other team moved in to block me as I got to half, and my teammates broke over the halfway, but were pretty well covered.

I focused my anger, and decided to be tricky! I deked right like I was going to pass while I ran left, bringing the ball with me. I dodged around a confused-looking forward, ran toward the net, halted the ball and shuffled it away from a nearby defense, then shot! It went straight past the goalie, who just stood there dumbfounded. Everything had lined up perfectly: I felt like a boss. While triumphantly strutting back to the other side, I heard shouts: “doesn’t count! doesn’t count!”

Why the hell doesn’t it count? Were you guys subbing really slowly? That’s your fault.

No, actually, see, there’s this rule in hockey. When the goalie passes it to a person after a goal, that person can bring it forward with them up to half, but must pass it over the line. I didn’t pass the ball: I just ran with it. The rule probably exists because rushing the net like that gives an advantage. The reason everyone just let me past is because they all know the rules, and I looked like an idiot. A complete amateur, which is what I am.

At the end of the game, they decided to count it anyway. We lost by a wide margin regardless, and they were feeling charitable. I made a complete beginner’s mistake tonight, but that doesn’t change that I played a solid game. I poured my heart into something, and it was a dumb idea. But I learned something.

My stuff at work? I’m probably making stupid decisions all the time. As long as I keep my head level and really work hard, I’ll learn. The same goes for every thing in my life: I have mistakes ahead of me, and should consider them as welcome opportunities to learn from. All I can do is try to be better each day.