When my kids were young, I would take them to the local field and play softball. We didn’t walk for balls or strike out for missed swings because let’s be real, none of us could pitch. This meant we could be picky; we could just stand and wait, saving our best swing for our perfect pitch.

I try to face life like I did on those fields, holding the bat, waiting for my perfect pitch. Life happens, both good and bad. Balls flying at us. People say or do things. We say or do things. Financial setbacks. Relationship’s dissolve. Kids grow up. People fight. Crime and injustice and bad news found everywhere.

With each thing, we can decide to use our energy and focus to swing and swing or we can just keep our attention on the ball awaiting our perfect pitch. 

Not every battle needs fighting. Not every situation needs my opinion. Not every person needs to agree with or even like me. I do not need to know all the happenings around the world nor be involved in every cause. They may be all good things, it’s just that they are not all my things. We can decide what to engage with and what to let pass on by. 

I do not need to know the “news” around the world, typically it is bad news which produces fear and stress of which I can do nothing about. 

Some may call this being ‘ill informed’; the truth is: what will be, will be out there. I have very little impact on “out there” and if I have a problem, I do not need to watch the news to find out. Watching or reading bad news just gives us more problems to carry, problems that we cannot set down because we cannot solve them.

What our eyes view, our brain believes. Our brains believe we are experiencing what we are viewing. Don’t believe me, why do we get stressed at movies? We know they are not real; we are sitting in a movie theater! And yet, we are stressed or afraid or crying or laughing. 

You do not need more bad news. You don’t need to worry about what others are thinking or fix problems before they happen or shrink parts of yourself to make others more comfortable; if they are not comfortable with your success, they have a little work to do, and that is not your problem.

If I don’t seek to know all the bad news around the world, I am not ‘ill informed;’ I am saving my energy and resources for my perfect pitch.  I sit with beautiful people all day, I know the news. I know the problems. I have had the honor of sitting with some of the ‘news’ in my office; real people, real feelings, real struggle, real loss, and what has been depicted in the ‘news’: not always accurate or complete. But in that space, I engage and care and sit with and walk with people directly experiencing the hard stuff, this is my perfect pitch, everything else can pass by. 

We need to save our energy and resources for our perfect pitches. Our perfect pitches are the places that we have influence and power and resources to make a difference: our friends, our families, our communities. These are the spaces we are informed about because we are part of them. I promise you, we will know when the danger is imminent. Everything else is “what if.”  

So, I suggest let things pass by while waiting for your perfect pitch. Waiting for the places that you have influence, the places you have the power and presence to make a difference. If this is around the world, absolutely, do that. But if the awareness of problems is just causing stress for things you can do nothing about, let it pass by. Guard your mind and heart.