A few weeks ago I chose tennis as a longterm hobby. I want to play for fun, but I also want to get really good -- good enough that I'll be able to play with the best recreational players in my city within a few years.

The start to this hobby was rocky. Because everybody is busy and rain's been so frequent, it's been difficult to organize people. In two weeks time I've managed to setup three dates with two of them getting rained out.

In the middle of this week my girlfriend glanced at my lonely racquet, sitting patiently by our front door and said, "hey i thought you said you were going to play a lot?"

My immediate responses were about rain and how it was impossible to organize amidst so many different schedules. She asked, couldn't I just go play alone? I was already exercising outside in the mornings, I could just go practice hitting.

I made up excuses: If you want to get really get good you needed other people to throw you curve balls. How could I get good just hitting alone? Plus I only had two

tennis

balls, so if I were to go hit alone, I would only get to hit twice before having to go play fetch and doing it all over again. That's when I declared that I would buy more balls and then I would ramp up my practice.

I woke up earlier than expected this Saturday. It was cool out and the rain hadn't yet come. I thought about going for a run, but then seeing my lonely racquet and the two tennis balls that I had reminded me of excuses. I was so good at making them. But lately they've been sounding more and more asinine to me. Right then I suddenly felt a desire to get good using whatever means I had, as soon as possible rather than waiting, more than the desire to make excuses about how it wasn't the right time. 

I've had two sessions since, and I can now already hit the ball over the net consistently. I can't wait to go and buy three more sets of tennis balls so that I can stop playing so much fetch.