When I was a child, my father used to warn me about excessive desires. It’s paradoxical, he said. But sometimes, when you obsess about a goal, you can undermine your chances of achieving it. And then my father would tell me the story of the skates–a story that, some fifty years later, still brought tears to his eyes.

Let me regress. When my father was a boy, a movie experience was a far cry from what it is today. Imagine a world without television, movies on-demand, CDs, NETFLIX, and Utube! Fortunately for my father, there was a local movie house in his hometown, Newark, New Jersey. To attract customers, the theater offered live entertainment along with the film. Even more important, from my father’s point of view, was the prize that the movie house awarded to the patron whose ticket stub had a number matching that on the ticket from a drawing.

The prize my father hankered for was a pair of skates. Daydreaming about them, he could imagine himself wearing those skates and gliding across Hawthorne Lake, the place where his family vacationed in northern New Jersey. (The place where, in fact, he taught me to ice skate many years later). The day finally came when the prize was a pair of skates. On hearing the news, my father dashed to the movie theater, perhaps not even knowing what film was being featured. Full of anticipation, he was primed in his seat, clutching his ticket stub and paying little attention to the action on the screen. Finally the show was over, and the drawing about to begin. My father sat forward in his seat, certain that his lucky day had arrived.

My father sat forward in his seat, certain that his lucky day had arrived.

Then the number was called out, and–believe it or not–it was his! He raced to the stage, grasping the ticket in his hand. But, when the manager of the theater inspected the ticket, he stood dumbfounded: there is no number on this ticket, he said. So preoccupied had my father been with winning, he inadvertently rubbed off the ticket number as he squirmed restlessly in his chair. That night, my father went home crestfallen, and without skates.

My father’s story came to mind the other day, when I opened my weblog, only to find a major mishap. All of the comments on my blog posts had disappeared–even the ones I treasured most, ie. those from the Provost. In fact, much to my horror, I realized that the comments had been PERMANENTLY DELETED. How could this happen? I soon found out. As was the case with my father’s skates–it had to do with excess zeal. While I love getting comments, I hate getting spam. Yet, everyday, like clockwork, I find entries from the same annoying spammers, who go by such names of Heel, Dominic, Jane, Hero, Bill, etc. Arg**/# So I went on a rampage, and tried to wipe them out. Unfortunately, there was collateral damage, and along with the spam, I destroyed all my comments. My apologies to all who took the time and thought to provide me this feedback.

My father was right–we are subject to unforeseen consequences when we focus too intensely on the main ball. Life is complex, so we need to look at the ball in context. Hmm. Isn’t that what I teach in my classes?

On Technorati: lessons from time, self full filling prophecies, the main ball, zeal