Today is a glorious, glorious day. It’s 45 degrees and raining, but in my mind the shutters are open, the birds are singing, and the flowers are blooming.
It’s opening day ladies and gentlemen.
I love baseball. I love everything about baseball. I love the precision, the timelessness, the probability, the statistics, the symmetry, the history books, the records, the asterisks, the open ended and infinite nature of each game, the $10 beers, the landscaping, the human error, the quest for perfection, and the quest for being perfect 3 out of 10 tries. I love baseball.
I also have grown to love the Baltimore Orioles, the loveable losers who will exceed expectations by winning half of their games this year. But whenever I think of the Orioles, or especially go to a game, I think of a tradition that is inexplicable to me. When I ask native Baltimoreans where the tradition comes from, the answer is invariably “I don’t know. That's just always been done.”
“That’s the way we’ve always done it here.” I’m sure you’ve railed against that disclaimer at least once in your life. But despite having enough commentary about it already out there, we’ll take a ‘Perfect’ Antidote view of the statement by starting with a parable I’m sure you heard before.
“There are five gorillas in a cage in a zoo that get fed bananas on a regular basis. One day the zoo keeper ties a banana to a string at the top of the cage and places a ladder underneath the banana. As soon as one of the gorillas goes near the banana the zoo keeper blasts all of the gorillas with ice cold water from a hose. After a week of being sprayed anytime they go near the banana, they cease to even attempt the effort.
At the end of the week one of the gorillas is moved to another cage and replaced with a new one. After a few minutes the new one attempts to grab the banana. But this time, instead of being sprayed by the zoo keeper, the other gorillas attack him to prevent them all from being sprayed with water. The new gorilla doesn’t know why he shouldn’t grab for the banana, but he is sure not to try again. The next day a new gorilla replaces an original one and the same story ensues, this time with the first replacement joining in on the beating of the new gorilla despite not understanding why.
This goes on until all of the original gorillas have been replaced, and when the new gorilla attempts to grab the prize he is mercilessly attacked by the others despite any of them knowing why, or ever having been sprayed with cold water. Why do they still attack?
Because that’s the way it’s always been done.”
How often in everyday settings do we, without a second thought, do something because of habit without really knowing the basis for those actions, or how they will support our goals? We often think, or are told, we have to do certain things in certain ways to achieve the outcome, because we are told that is the correct way, even if that way takes greater effort. Thinking back to a previous post, it’s the outcome that’s important, not the means. Does the activity have to be done a certain way, or even at all to achieve the outcome? Are you spending needless effort just because “that’s the way it’s always been done?”
So, what about the tradition? Well that brings us to the song of the day.
Song of the Day
In honor of questioning our way of doing things, humane treatment of gorillas, cakes on the griddle, and a song inexplicably played during the seventh inning stretch at Camden Yards, the song of the day is John Denver’s “Thank God I'm a Country Boy.”
Play Ball everyone, Play Ball.
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