Wisdom Wednesday – Believe the Best

Stop watching the news…

We live in a paranoid world. According to the news, everyone is out to get you. You need to watch your back and trust no one. Lock the doors and hide your children, the world is an unsafe place full of awful people who will take advantage of you if given the slightest chance.

Ah the good old nightly news. That first paragraph is why I stopped watching the news years ago. No evening news, no newspapers, no news radio, nothing. That’s because I discovered that they are full of crap.

All you see on the news is sensationalized propaganda that’s designed to keep you scared and keep you watching. Stay tuned until the end of our broadcast to see what common household item is killing you right now! Anyone who lives in the real world realizes that 95% of the people out there are good, upstanding people.

That’s one of the many reasons I love disc golf. I’ve met good person after good person after good person out on the course. The world is not full of gloom and doom. The news is wrong.

[tweetthis]Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to ignorance.[/tweetthis]

One of my favorite sayings is “Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to ignorance.” That’s basically saying the same thing as the picture above. If someone does you wrong. If someone hurts you in some way. The first thing to realize is that 9.5 times out of 10, it wasn’t intentional. It might be stupidity related, but it’s usually not on purpose. That means that we shouldn’t react like it was.

People are not out to get you…

If someone coughs while you are throwing, don’t assume they’re messing with you. If they didn’t watch exactly where your disc went into the bushes, don’t blame them if you can’t find it. If some kid in the park picks up your disc because they don’t see you standing 350 feet away, don’t jump to the conclusion that they are trying to steal from you.

And here’s a big one. If someone tells you they got a 4 and they really got a 5, don’t flip out. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve lost count on a hole. As I’ve written about before, I really strive to have a short memory when it comes to score. That means I sometimes mis count my throws.

I don’t do it on purpose. And I really want people to correct me when I’m wrong. I feel kinda dumb when it happens, but I’d rather feel dumb than find out that someone is talking behind my back about how they think I’m a cheater. Honesty and integrity and two of my most dearly held core values. I would never cheat at anything let alone the sport that I love most in this world!

Assume the best…

Go through life on and off the disc golf course assuming the best of people. Honestly, you’ll rarely be disappointed. The neat thing is that even some of the more unscrupulous people out there will not be that way with you when you treat them with respect and expect the best of them.

So turn off the nightly news and stop looking over your shoulder. Get out on the course and meet some new people. If they make a mistake, give ’em the benefit of the doubt. You’ll get upset a lot less and you will all enjoy your rounds more.

Odds are your life as a whole will also be better for it.

You know what else will make your life better? Subscribing to this blog! You’ll get a weekly newsletter with content you can’t find anywhere else. You’ll get links to all the tips and articles we publish each week. And you’ll be entered to win prizes occasionally too! Just enter your email below.

[wysija_form id=”1″]