I love you/I hate you.

This is going to be another post about basketball.
But don't worry, it leads to personal discovery and transcendent self-deprecation. And that's what we're all looking for really.

See, basketball is a strange one for me.
I love it. Love, genuine love.
But the trouble is I'm much better at thinking/talking about it than I am playing it.

I mean it's not entirely my fault.

When you design a perfect basketball player you don't give them an athletically-limited 5'10'' body with bad eyesight, stubby legs and a generally meek attitude to competition. And if you do, you definitely don't give them the ability to realise this.

Nevertheless, physical limitations can only shoulder so much of the blame. I'm still able-bodied, and I hold the distinction of being neither the shortest, the weakest or the fattest.

If you come and watch me you will notice I don't dribble much (and not because I can't), I make stupid decisions and I pass up easy shots. And I'm afraid that all this comes down to a lack of confidence. Alex, my self-appointed motivational trainer, often tells me that I play better when I play with confidence.

Part of that, I know, is simply a ploy to make me believe a little more into my limited abilities, but it is actually true. I know I play better when things are going my way. But I can't harness that. I can't tell make myself think like things are going good.

I am stuck in reality. And this applies not just to basketball. Most things I do could be improved if I just had a little faith in what I do and what I think and what I say.

I confine myself to mediocrity.

Basketball.
I love it, but it is a microcosm for everything that is wrong with my life.

It is the projection of my lack of confidence ruining something that should be good.

And it is the proof that no matter how much I care about something, that I don't have the strength of character or the bravery to overcome the problems.