On October 6, 1993,  the world of basketball was struck with a shock of epic proportions.  Michael Jordan, the icon of the sport and the winner of the three consecutive NBA Championships, suddenly announced his retirement from competitive basketball.

Initially, he cited the loss of desire to play the game as the main reason for his retirement. However, many years later he would state that the recent death of his father very much affected his decision.⁽¹⁾ New York Times:A Humbled Jordan Learns New Truths With hindsight, this second explanation seems much more reasonable and understandable. According to Jordan himself, his father has always dreamt of his son playing in the Major Baseball League. ⁽²⁾Sports Illustrated: Jordan LegacyAnd just a couple of months after announcing his retirement, on February 7, 1994, Jordan signed a contract with the Minor Baseball Team, Chicago White Sox.

Naturally, both basketball and baseball fans all over the world couldn’t have waited for his first game to start. There was immense interest in his baseball potential and skills. The question whether he would be able to fare with the Minor League players after not holding the bat for 15 years (he did play baseball competitively in high school) rose immense interest.

Furthermore, most of his fans expected more or less the same domination he displayed on the basketball field. After all, already then he was considered as one of the greatest players to ever play the ball game. Additionally, his desire to win has also become legendary (who doesn’t know the story about Jordan losing in ping pong to a teammate only to get a table of his own and train for six months in order to get his revenge?). ⁽³⁾The Sportser: Top 15 Insane Michael Jordan Stories You Should Know

Therefore, the expectations were skyrocketing. However, a cold shower awaited his fervent supporters. Because with the batting average of only .202 during the 1994 season, he never came even close to establishing any sort of domination similar to the one he achieved on the basketball court. Due to his iconic status and aura of invincibility, many fans were hesitant to criticize his performance. They evaluated it as average, at worst. However, I think not withholding criticism was more accurate. Because it is fair to say that, at baseball, Michael Jordan wasn’t that good.

At baseball, Michael Jordan pretty much sucked.

Okay, the sentence I have just written might make me look like an utter douchebag. After all, Jordan did manage to compete in the Minor Baseball League, which is something that even people who play baseball regularly sometimes never achieve. He was probably better at baseball than 95 percent of the human population, so even if his batting average was below average, how can anyone claim he really sucked?

Well, at this point you might remember Dave Mustaine and him feeling like a failure even after selling numerable albums and playing in front of millions of people. Even though most people would say that he is extremely successful without a second thought, he still thought he pretty much sucked.

It is not hard to imagine that Michael Jordan’s thoughts about his own baseball career were quite similar. It is not really surprising that his iconic „I’m back“ happened only one year later. I am pretty sure that Jordan couldn’t stand not winning titles and not playing playoffs. After all, much later in his life, he said he regrets playing for the Washington Wizards in the final days of his basketball career. ⁽⁴⁾NBC Sports: Michael Jordan Regrets Playing For Wizards

Therefore, although he was exceptionally good at baseball, he wasn’t the very best, like in basketball. His high standards and competitive nature didn’t allow him to be a mere spectator. It was all or nothing for him; either he would win the game, or he wouldn’t play it at all.

With that in mind, let me rephrase the „controversial“ sentence written above.

At baseball, Michael Jordan pretty much sucked relatively.

SUCKING RELATIVELY

When we are kids, we have a pretty egotistical viewpoint on the world around us. Somehow we all think we are at the centre of the universe, and that we have similar power like the ancient king Midas. That everything we do, touch or say turns things into gold.

When we are kids, we aren’t self-aware enough to admit to ourselves that perhaps not everything about us is gold and rosy. That we might suck at something. I think that a lot of it has to do with the fact that it is sometimes not that easy to find something in which you really suck relatively. We as human beings have a natural tendency to compare ourselves with each other. The delusion of us being very good at pretty much everything is enhanced by the limited amount of people we are surrounded with.

Therefore, when you compare yourself to your fellow classmates and friends and neighbours and teammates from your football team, you will always find an area in which you don’t suck relatively. Most of us start pursuing that area, and disregard many other things we might try to do. Why risk trying something else when we risk being bad at it? In the whole process, we attach huge parts of our identity to the activities we engulf in and start measuring our whole worth solely by the results these activities produce.

Also, our parents and grandparents often foster this feeling by telling us that we are their sunshine, that we are unique and that we are the smartest and the most beautiful. Although displaying positive emotions and feelings is essential for childhood development, research actually shows that too much nurturing can have counterproductive effects. ⁽⁵⁾Psychologies.co: Stop Telling Your Kids They Are Clever And Talented

The problem is that, sooner or later, we realize that we indeed suck relatively at our activity. At some stage in life, you start expanding your social circle and developing your self-awareness. These two combined quickly lead to an epiphany. There will always be someone, somewhere, who is better, faster, quicker, smarter, more beautiful or generally more successful, regardless of what you do.

Such a turn of events might lead to great disappointment. Your whole identity revolves around the idea of being good at something.  The realization that you aren’t, destroys that part of the identity and then… BOOM… Hello, puberty and the indifference and the early crisis of your teens. Or the egzistential crisis of your twenties. Or any sort of egzistential crisis, for that matter.

BIG ADVENTURES OF THE LITTLE VJEKO

Now, the reason I’ve been blabbering about these HUGE „childhood traumas“ is that I have personally gone through everything described above. When I was a kid, I’ve always been a nerd of a sort. I didn’t make friends very easily, I wasn’t particularly good looking and I’ve spent way to much time doing „uncool“ stuff, like reading books or playing computer games.

The only thing that remained was to be good at school. It was the only role suitable for me at that moment, so I’ve decided to take it without hesitation. Additionally, since my parents were fervent supporters of the „one musical instrument, one sport“ philosophy, I played the piano on a regular basis and trained table tennis five times a week.

Naturally, with such a busy schedule it was easy to distract myself from the fact that my social skills pretty much sucked. Especially since I’ve started having reasonable success both in table tennis and piano (while participating in competitions). Together with my good grades, these things combined developed a strong feeling of entitlement in me. I started feeling that I am „destined“ to be good and I attached parts of my identity to these activities.

In the school, I was the „smartest kid in the class“. In the table tennis hall, I was „the 4th in the Croatia superstar“. In the music school, I was „that guy that passed the auditions for competitions“. And life was good.

For a while.

After a couple of years of ignorance, the realization that I suck relatively hit me.  Parts of my identity hot shattered one by one more efficiently than Voldemort’s Horcruxes ⁽⁶⁾What, have you really missed the „nerd“ and „reading“ mentioned before?.  Sure, in school I had decent results, but then I started going to the local and national competitions. I haven’t had any particular success, but I’ve always had excuses and rationalizations ready.

On the table tennis court, I went to an international competition and saw that I am nobody on a global scale.  That hurt by itself, but I also went through a year-long slump which threw me back at the 30th place of the national ranking list. Suddenly there were 29 players which I sucked compared to. My solution? Blame everybody else but myself and give up the sport for 6 years.

In the musical competitions, there were many people who would much later go to conservatories and become professional musicians. Since I measured my piano skills with them, it goes without saying that I was very much discouraged when I found out that I suck compared to them.

Oh, have I mentioned I gave up piano completely just as I was to finish the elementary musical school in order to have more free time to play World of Warcraft? Problem avoiding, you are doing it right.

Over the years, I have noticed that I am not the only one to abruptly stop doing everything just because it turned out I suck relatively. Have you ever wondered why the transition from junior to senior years is so difficult in sport? There are thousands of promising talents who come very close to success on the brink of their 17th or 18th year and then suddenly fade without realizing their full potential?

I agree there are multiple factors involved there, but I think that the thought process is somewhat similar to the one young Vjeko had. These talents are used to being good in something; in the limited demographic circle like their sports club, their region or even the whole country they have always done exceptionally well and pretty much got used to it.

However, usually during the late junior years, they get the opportunity to compete in some serious natural competitions. This switch is sometimes a great shock; after all, suddenly you compete against the very best from all over the world,  you do much worse then you used to do back at home.  The realization that you suck relatively quickly follows.

Of course, this problem is not exclusively tied to younger years of your life. I have experienced the „I suck“ realization over and over even later in life. For instance, I thought I was good at maths before entering university. After being surrounded with people with certain aptitude toward maths for two months, I realized that I pretty much suck.

After my university, I had expectations that I have at least learnt something about electrical engineering. After being surrounded by experienced engineers for two months, I realized that I pretty much suck. And so on.. and so on..

Okay, I imagine many of you might wonder what’s the point of all this? So far, I have detected the problem, but haven’t offered anything resembling the solution. Does this mean we will all be unhappy? That we should only try to find that one area where we are good and leave everything else behind? That we should all stop doing what we do if we aren’t exceptional in anything?

Well, no. As will be explained later, sucking at something is not directly correlated to happiness. On the contrary, we can both suck and be happy at the same time. However, before tackling that question, let us first see whether there is anything we can do to suck a little less.

The first idea that comes to mind is dealing with the word relatively. However, this is easier said than done. As mentioned before, we humans compare ourselves naturally with those around us. It is virtually impossible to shut this tendency completely off. Unless we are not the very best, most of our efforts will be in vain.

Therefore, a more practical idea is trying to focus on the word suck and transform it into sucking little less. But how do we do that? Let’s see what Malcolm Gladwell has to say about it.

10 000 HOURS?

In his book Outliers: The Story of Success ⁽⁷⁾Malcolm Gladwell: Outliers: The Story of Success, the famous psychologist and bestseller author Malcolm Gladwell repeatedly claimed it takes 10 000 hours to become a real expert in a certain field:

„The idea that excellence at performing a complex task requires a critical minimum level of practice surfaces again and again in studies of expertise. In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.“ 

Now, here is the solution that we have all heard many times, right? It is the plain old Hard work gives results philosophy backed up by some sophisticated scientific evidence and a concrete number behind it.

However, the beauty of cliche advice is that quite often they actually do work. I have already mentioned how I lagged behind in math skills compared to my university colleagues. This happened partly because my high school entitlement hindered my willingness to give my best at a time (I was reluctant to adhere to the never stop learning philosophy).

But also, the fact was that many students arrived from high schools which had much more math hours in their curriculum compared to my high school. That meant that, in order to narrow the gap, I would have to spend quite some time in the library, solving equation after equation and learning theorem after theorem. It was a painstaking process, but in the end, it paid off as my final result in the subject was quite decent. Neither better, neither worse than that of an average student. But I have managed to suck little less than at the start of the semester.

One of the main reasons why I didn’t quit this time is that, basically, I didn’t have any other choice. It was one thing to give up a hobby like table tennis and piano earlier in life. But here we were talking about college education and the subsequent career. Even though I was overwhelmed with the feeling of sucking relatively, there was no easy way out this time.

There was no other identity I could have taken, there was no other hobby I could have started doing up. Blizzard had just released The Mists of Pandaria, sealing the fate of World of Warcraft once and for all. With hindsight, I regret not having this kind of attitude earlier in life, when I first realized that I suck relatively. My piano and table tennis careers weren’t a matter of life and death. Objectively speaking, it would do no harm whatsoever if I kept doing them and improving steadily. At that moment it would have cost me nothing but my time (which I had more than enough).

At this point, you might think something along the lines: „Okay, Vjeko, that is all nice, but sometimes my work doesn’t… work. Sometimes I do put huge amounts of work but I don’t see the benefits. After hours and hours I still suck pretty much. What am I to do?“

Glad you asked.

First of all, I would like to point out that although the core idea behind Gladwell’s philosophy is correct, guaranteeing success purely by the quantity and not by the quality of work is probably slightly misguided. Prominent psychologist Anders Ericcson argued that 10 000 hours alone is probably not enough. For instance, most of us spend more than 10 000 driving a car, yet only rare of us become professional drivers. ⁽⁸⁾National post: Malcolm Gladwell Got It Wrong

More importantly, the answer to the question above once again depends on how you define „suck pretty much“.   Everything depends on expectations you have. If you are a 63-year-old who just started playing tennis, it might be possible that you put up 10 000 hours with top trainers over the next decade, but it is highly improbable you will raise the Trophy dedicated to the Wimbledon winner.

At least as long as Roger Federer is still.. alive?

Since we all have to die one day, our time on this planet is limited. And considering that 21st century offers us endless opportunities, it is virtually impossible to spend 10 000 hours (or more) of quality work in multiple fields simultaneously.

Many authors have pointed out that nowadays, life is a game of trade-offs. It is inevitable that you suck at something and there is nothing you can do against it.

That’s why many brilliant scientists have terrible social skills.

That’s why many famous actors have terrible relationship skills.

That’s why many football players often don’t read a proper book.

What you can do is choose where you want to suck and where you want to suck little less. And guess what. Contrary to what is presented to us today, sucking at things is actually a pretty good thing. In his fantastic book Barking Up The Wrong Tree, bestselling author Eric Barker demystifies many stereotypes about success. ⁽⁹⁾Eric Barker: Barking at The Wrong Tree . In the 5th chapter titled: Believe in Yourself… Sometimes Barker deals with the issue of overconfidence:

„Approaching issues with a critical eye can discourage you because you’re finding faults, but it’s also the first step toward improvement…

Another study, titled „Tell Me What I did Wrong“, showed that a shift takes place when people are on the path to expertise. Novices seek and need positive feedback because it keeps them working at something they’re not very good at.

But there’s a tipping point. As someone becomes an expert they deliberately seek out negative feedback so they know how to keep improving now that their mistakes are fewer and subtler.“

In other words, for the same reason we shouldn’t overestimate the potential and abilities of our own children, we shouldn’t be overconfident in our own abilities. By admitting to yourself that you suck, you are more likely to come close to realizing your full potential.

SUBTLE ART OF NOT GIVING A … SUCK?

The importance of realizing your full potential was recognized by another bestselling author and famous blogger, Mark Manson. In his outstanding book, Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck he defines happiness as the process of becoming an ideal self ⁽¹⁰⁾Mark Manson: Subtle Art Of Not Giving a Fuck.

Let me repeat that once again.

Happines is the process of becoming an ideal self.

The beauty of this sentence is the fact that, as mentioned before, we get to choose what the ideal self means. Being an ideal self doesn’t necessarily mean being a perfect self. There is nothing wrong in sucking. It is up to you decide in which areas you want to suck more and in which little less. And as we have just seen, by allowing yourself to suck, you are actually more likely to suck little less in the future.

That’s precisely the reason why I think Michael Jordan’s switch to baseball is the greatest move of his career. His ideal self at that perfect moment was a baseball player. Whatever the real reason for this switch, he didn’t do what was expected of him. He didn’t care that many fans will be disappointed, that many will call him a coward for retiring at the height of his powers. He did it because he decided he wants to do it.

At that particular moment, he decided to pursue what he thought is best for him. He gave it a try, it didn’t work, he sucked at it and he gave it up. Later he decided that his ideal self is basketball champion, after all.  The fact that he was able to return to basketball afterwards and dominate once again merely amplifies the significance of this bold move. And merely reinforced his status of the greatest basketball player who ever lived.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have an article to publish. Even though I have my doubts.

Because the article probably sucks.