Task-Oriented Myopia

I find my own perception of things to be so skewed on the immediate sometimes. As a baseball fan I try to take the long view of things. But sometimes it's hard. Last night the Indians just pounded the Red Sox 15-3. Ben Broussard had 2 HR and 8 RBI, including a grand slam. I remember how hot they were the first week of the season as well. It seemed like they were ready to go 161-1 after losing the first game. Then they hit a slide and started playing poorly. Then it seemed like the middle relief would never get anyone out. But they just had two good games against the Red Sox and it feels like they'll just keep scoring whenever they need to.

As anyone who ever followed a baseball team knows, it's a long season. They play for 6 months and grind it out over 162 games. By the end you have a pretty good sense for who the best teams really are.

I've often thought of my walk with the Lord like this. When things are going well it doesn't seem too tough to make the right choice. Then when it seems like the world is coming down on me I am often strongly tempted to take the easy, but more destructive way out. I often think of my choices like coming to a fork in a path. Both choices seem to go the way I think I need to go. One seems to have a fairly steep incline to start with, but the other seems to have a gentle decline. But if we take the one with the decline we soon find ourselves in a mass of thistles and brambles. Then we realize that we needed to have that climb to get where we need to go. Only now the climb is much harder.

I guess this is what being a slacker is about sometimes. We tend to look for the instant gratification instead of looking at the long view. I have blisters on my left fingertips because I took too much time off from playing my guitar. More and more I realize that this needs to be one more thing I add to my routine along with exercise and everything else I do. I realize that I have so little discipline that I need to add things to my routine if they're ever going to get done.