I recently have been rewatching Ted Lasso. Why not right? It’s a damn near perfect show that makes you feel warm inside. I was watching a scene where Roy Kent feels like he can’t date Keeley because Keeley used to date and has slept with Jamie Tartt, who Roy loathes. I think that a lot of people have this issue where they can’t date someone who has slept with a mutual. I can relate to this because I’ve slept around so much that no one wants to date me at the risk of becoming Eskimo Hoes with a mutual girl friend. Anyways, there’s a line in this scene that shook me. Roy really likes Keeley and his feelings tell him that he should pursue her, but he is resistant because of her sexual history. Roy is trying to control his feelings and fights against this attraction to Keeley but rather he is having internal conflict. However, thanks to Ted and the Diamond Dogs, (RoOOoROooRooOo) they use the Uno Reverse card and tell Roy that perhaps it is his feelings that should control him, not the other way around. And this is where we start this article.
I would say that compared to most people I know, I’m quite disciplined. I have a diet, workout regiment, and schedule that I’ve pretty much sticked to for the past two years. I’ve been very good at staying on time and on task for the most part and I feel like I push myself enough where I can see some progressive change through time. I have my process, I work on it, I refine it, and I make sure that before I move onto anything new or big that I’ve got my foundation set. When I was a student athlete, I had my days organized busily with school and practice, it had its challenged but it was exactly what I needed. But recently I’ve been struggling with this discipline. As more opportunities come up, as more people are relying on me for things, as problems arise, the straight and narrow of my discipline feels like it’s being pulled into different directions. I thought that I had trained for this. It’s hard to focus with all the distractions but I also recognize that I need to be flexible in my daily life to make things work.
I have to realize that as I grow and change, so does my attitude when dealing with pressure. This is where Ted Lasso comes in. We can’t be so focused on what we have in our hands and what we are comfortable with when it comes to dealing with challenges that are new. Yes, we use them as the backbone to solve our problems but modern problems, require modern solutions. For instance, let’s say you’re great at math and you know how the formulas and equations work – well eventually you’re going to come to a question that you can’t answer on paper, you’re going to need a calculator. I think my calculator right now (leaving the metaphor) are my feelings. I have to let my feelings dictate where to go from here when solving my issues. I’ve been conflicted with people, work, and my priorities, when in reality – I should probably just go with the flow and adjust accordingly instead of trying to solve everything all at once. Effort and discipline won’t fix everything.
And who knows, you end up letting your feelings control you too much, maybe you end up with a broken heart, a crushed dream, or even a bruised BE-hind (yes I wrote it like that on purpose) but at that point you can consider it as your feelings telling you to slow down and adjust. You can even have the ol’ discipline come back and save you. If the bruised BE-hind does come up though, you can also take it as a sign that you tried to fix something one way and it didn’t work, therefore you should try another way. That or maybe it’s not a problem that you can fix, not on your own anyways.
But Baron what problems are you even alluding to right now? Are you going to write this essay and not even tell us what you’re going through internally? Ah nothing really, random but treasured reader. Just a little internal conflict regarding people, work, and the universe. I guess I’m just feeling that life is catching up to me, just a feeling.
