If you can’t catch...

If you can’t catch, don’t throw.
In other words, don’t dish out more than you can take. After all, what you throw will ~ eventually ~ come back to you. This is quite obvious at any time you ‘play catch’; throwing and catching the ball back and forth. But it is also true in life.

When we are kind, we encounter kindness; yet when we are frustrated, chances are we encounter people and situations that only add to the frustration.

But what when it is not about our ability to catch, but rather about our ability to retrieve the ball? If it doesn’t matter whether we fumble and drop the ball time after time, only to run after it and keep playing. Trusting that eventually we will get it right.
In other words, what if it is not about catching the ball in and of itself, but rather about how we handle what happens ~ whether we catch the ball or not?

That would put the phrase in a whole different perspective!
Now it becomes something like: “Expect that which you put out to come back to you so you can learn from the experience.”
In turn, it indicates that we have a certain amount of control over the (life)lessons we meet on our personal paths, as it now says that encountering each lesson is a result of something we have ‘thrown’ or put out.
And finally, it is not about the situations or experiences in and of themselves ~ ‘how clumsy we are that we can’t even catch the ball ~ again’ ~ it is all about what we do and how we handle retrieving the ball in order to keep playing. Playing the game of life, that is.

So when what we put out will return to us, we can choose to put out a positive energy. In doing so we set the stage for our next lesson to come into our lives in the most positive way possible, such that even when we would ‘drop the ball’ we can easily retrieve it…

This then can become our motivation to be kind more often. To encourage others to take the next step ~ to throw the next ball ~ on their path. To cheer them on when they catch the ball in return, and to cheer them up when they fumble.
And also to give ourselves a pat on the back when things are going our way ~ after all, at this point we are clearly ‘playing well’ ~ and to take life as it comes when we ‘drop the ball’.

Live, learn, and play on!
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