It's just a point

I just listened to the BBC podcast "More or Less" and was amazed that Roger Federer's speech at the 2024 Dartmouth Commencement last month is again in the spotlight.

It's all about one of the three tennis lessons that Federer learned through his career and shared in his speech, in his words, "It's just a point", and that Federer interpreted from two aspects. 

From the first aspect he shared that "failure is unpleasant but inevitable, but when it's beyond, it's beyond". We should let go and focus on things at hand. It's just like losing a point in a tennis match -  "it's just one point in the game." Mirroring it in life, any failure - sports competitions, exams, job interviews, work performance etc., is just a "point" in the game of life - losing THAT point is not the end of the world.

From the other aspect, conversely, Federer meant to win THIS point by all means, dealing with it "as the most important thing in the world". That’s it - be present and focus on THIS point right now, 100%, without being affected by the point lost a while ago!

What Federer delivered in his lesson "It's just a point" requires such psychological strength that it's probably beyond the reach of ordinary people. Still, Federer's selfless sharing is much appreciated and those who are inspired, ordinary or talented (and I for one), may try to practice for our stronger, healthier mind.

Elsewhere, to solidify his point about the inevitability of failure or loss, Federer shared a number that simply blew everyone away: as a top-ranked player, he won only 54% - slightly more than a half - of the points he played against his opponents throughout his career. In other words, he lost nearly half of his points along the way (although he won more than 80% of the matches). If Federer loses his points like this, how can anyone else remain "undefeated"?

Thus, this episode was produced to verify the hard-to-believe 54% shared by Federer. As it turned out,  Federer's right - the point-won ratio for current top-ranked players ranges from 53% to 56%, just about the number he shared.

"It's just a point" - both well said and perfectly  demonstrated. I graduated from university 43 years ago, but I may as well take your words with me for my re-commencement going forward. Thank you Roger for your selfless and invaluable sharing .❤️

#RogerFederer

#2024DartmouthCommencement

#ItsJustAPoint

#WhenItsBeyondItsBeyond

#BePresent

#FocusOnThisPoint

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0j9rx35

Comments

  1. Read, blog, travel, bikeJuly 13, 2024 at 4:30 PM

    Self evaluation: as the very first blog in my life time, well done! Way to go!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Read, blog, travel, bikeSeptember 14, 2024 at 4:43 AM

    Chinese translation on FB
    https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0rv3GA6woFzE3HuwqhfeT5VuQqrqK2ECMmRMoSiRcTFkeg7RLjHcoWTo3m2eS2wF6l&id=100011363202658&mibextid=ZbWKwL

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Journey Between Two Seas

Image
I landed safely yesterday, having been out of my country for a two-week trip to Lithuania and Poland. This was a long-awaited trip because I was first inspired to make it five years ago, when Lithuania became the first country where we could use the name "Taiwan" for our representative office in Europe. A lover of both history and culture, I learned in my subsequent preparations about the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which, before being partitioned three times, had been the largest state in Europe, with its territories spanning between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. I was fascinated by the rise and fall of the commonwealth and decided to include Poland in my trip as well.  So I embarked on this dream journey and arrived in Vilnius after a 23-hour journey with connections in Hong Kong and Frankfurt. Three days later, I traveled to Kaunas by train. The next destination was Warsaw, followed by Krakow, where I took my return flight that took slightly less time (thanks to je...
Read more

A Day in Town: Houlong, Sanwan, Toufen, Zhunan (Miaoli County)

Image
During the week of 3/09 - 3/13, I completed my twenty-fifth trip under "A Day in Town," my multi-year backpacking plan to spend a day in each of the approximately 350 townships in Taiwan. My destination this time was Miaoli County, which borders Hsinchu County and Hsinchu City to the north, Taichung City to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the west. Due to the Xueshan Range, Miaoli County is a very mountainous region and has little flat land. The county administers 18 townships, of which I had visited four during my last trip here a year ago, so this time I visited another four townships: Houlong, Sanwan, Toufen, and Zhunan. I spent my first day in Houlong, a coastal township occupying the central section of Miaoli's 50-kilometer-long coastline and home to Miaoli HSR Station. I began by taking a train to Houlong Station, which is located in the old city center on the west side, in contrast to the fast-growing area on the east side, where Miaoli HSR Station is located. ...
Read more

My Mini Grand Tour: Italy

Image
I haven't posted anything on my blog for the past three weeks because I was traveling abroad with my wife. Our destination was Italy — the center of the Greco-Roman world and the birthplace of the Renaissance. Having been inspired by the great works of Italian literature — the Aeneid, the Metamorphoses, and the Divine Comedy — I took this long-awaited trip, imagining I was undertaking a Grand Tour like the upper-class young people did in the 19th century as part of their coming-of-age ritual. Unlike the months- or even years-long Grand Tours of the old days, however, our trip lasted only two weeks, so it was a mini Grand Tour — and also a short annual leave from blogging. This was my first trip to Italy, and it turned out to be easier than I expected, thanks to modern technology and the abundance of online information that allowed me to plan the trip well in advance and fine-tune our daily itineraries at the last minute. After arriving in Rome on October 17, we took trains, subways...
Read more