“My girlfriend’s sister asked why you keep throwing your balls underhand when you get them stuck in the trees.”

A simple question.

The Short answer: with A video!

I’m not gonna lie, my knee-jerk response was, “Great question! Tell her to worry about herself.” I mean, I’ve been throwing these balls for a certain pup cup since October an average of three times per day ranging from 10-15 minutes each time, and I’ve gotten the ball stuck in the branches maybe four times at most. That’s not to say branches aren’t grazed daily – that birds don’t fly off in a decided huff, stink-eyeing me mid-flight, but of the thousands of times that ball has been flung across the yard, they’re getting stuck up there less than .2% of the time (actually, that number is too high, but I’m working with a rough estimate on # of throws). Also, yeah… sometimes I’m basically Bill in the Leeroy Jenkins video.

So, the simple answer falls between: …because I want to and it’s not that big of a deal sprinkled with a hint of “I’ve got to me somedays.” For the record I “me” daily. I’m a rather carefree “me-er”.

But, let’s face it, I’m not happy with the simple answer to this question. That’s why I have a blog. (Did I mention I think it looks so much better?)

The Long Answer

So, why is it that I refuse to alter my habits when there’s a .2% (again, likely less) chance that I could be inconvenienced?

Think about the beginning of any hero’s journey – whether in fiction or non-fiction. When does it start? It starts the day the hero’s life changed for better or worse. Our hero/anti-hero/protagonist/what have you began their seemingly ordinary day as they normally would; however, this day was different – something changed. Our hero either encountered something or experienced something new/unexpected that set them down a different path – the one we’re now following with them.

That’s a story.

As for me…

Not long ago, I was chatting with a couple of friends separately about the things that happen to me in my life, and I asked for their opinion on the “why” part. Why do I keep having these sometimes strange encounters? Why are people drawn to me? (For the record, this is not always a great or fun thing. Someday I might share the story about being trapped in a room with a guy asking me to hand him a knife so he could carve some gangrene out of his leg. Good times.) Independent of each other, they both responded, “you’re naturally curious – you want to see where the story goes, so you’ll say “yes” to the experience.” A fair assessment.

So, why do I keep throwing the ball under the tree canopy?

For starters, I’m just not going to spend energy trying to bullet proof myself against a .2% chance I might be inconvenienced.

But also, maybe, just maybe that ball gets stuck in its branches and it leads to a good story. (Or a throw away story in a blog.)