As it happens Steve also has a blog called Messy Quest in which he uses anecdotes, often self-deprecating and humorous, to illustrate how we might live a fuller more meaningful life. It's really very good, but one post in particular, a homily on humility is especially worth reading.
He starts it off this way:
The other night, for the first time, I showed up for men’s doubles night at some local tennis courts. There’s a hierarchy that determines the court on which you play. I was assigned to the court reserved for those with the lowest skill level, based on the fact that I’d never played there before and perhaps because the tennis pro in charge intuited how bad my backhand really is.Go to Messy Quest and read how the rest of Steve's story unfolds. You'll enjoy it.
I was wandering around trying to locate Court #6 when a very tall, very old guy with exceptionally creaky knees stopped and pointed me in the right direction. As I thanked him, I couldn’t help thinking, “What the heck is that guy doing here? He can barely move.” But he was in fact there to play. And he was heading, quite slowly, toward Court #6.
When we got there, along with two other guys about my age, he introduced himself as Mac. Then he told us he’d been playing on the tennis club’s courts since 1965.
Math has never been my strong suit. But it didn’t take long to calculate that was five years before my parents had even met. No, wait, six years!
We warmed up by hitting some balls across the net to each other. I did my best to hit them right to him, so close that he wouldn’t have to take a step. I’m not always the most astute of men, but I definitely didn’t want to go down in history as the punk who, on his very first night on the courts, felled one of the club’s Founding Fathers with a deep lob.
