A$$hole.
The spate of opinions around Alex Carey‘s stumping of Jonny Bairstow in the Ashes has been interesting to follow.
Not that the world needs another opinion on it, but still, here’s mine.
Bairstow was silly to make the mistake of walking out of his crease when he did. He knows better and deserved to be stumped for it. Actually, he was silly, but in the spirit of cricket, should have been called back by the Australians. Unless of course you’re in favour of the law of cricket, then he should have been run out.
And it happened within the context of Bazball, England’s new attacking and entertaining style of cricket. If you’re in England fan, Bazball is fantastic and a breath of fresh air, when England’s winning that is. When they lose, Bazball is mindless and has the players lacking discipline.
And it’s architect, coach Brendon McCullum himself, is right to not want to have a beer with the Australians because of their conduct. Unless, of course, you look into McCullum and Bairstows history, and see that both have done exactly the same thing as wicket keepers. Maybe they were so upset it clouded their memories. Or maybe they were upset because Bairstow missed the stumps when he tried, and McCullum hit, but only after ‘over’ was actually called. Carey got it more right than them.
My opinion, is that everyone is right – from their perspective. And those who disagree are also right. From their perspective that is. We know the story, opinions are like a$$holes, everyone has one.
For me, it’s not so much our opinion that matters, but our attachment to that opinion.
The tighter we hold onto our view, and the more we make others wrong, the more this causes stress, anxiety and aggression to escalate.
Our over-attachment to a partially correct opinion disrupts our peace of mind, causes relationships to breakdown, grown men (and MCC members) to abuse or even punch each other, and countries (and religions) go to war. That’s what I call silly.
Share and listen to opinions. But be cautious of taking yourself, your view, or counter views too seriously.
Chill – choose peace of mind over being right, or making others wrong.
Sport is just a game, and so is almost everything else in life.
Please share your opinion in the comments below – let me know if I’m right or wrong?