Greg Hawley

quinoa is a dull idea

[Greg Hawley @gbones71]

@PRINCESSVlCKY Limerence

[Greg Hawley @gbones71]

@livvymattock The hardest thing sometimes is to accept help. To accept love. You are worthy of both and more

[𐡀 @Xyleniqq]

My son's baseball coach pulled me aside after practice last spring and told me something I've never repeated until now.

My son is sixteen.

He's been playing baseball since he was six.

He's good.

Not scholarship good.

Good in the way that matters more, where he's the kid who stays late, who picks up the equipment, who remembers everyone's batting average because he actually cares.

His coach called me over after the other parents had left.

He's a former minor leaguer. Forties. Direct man. Doesn't say things he doesn't mean.

Him: Can I tell you something about your son?

Me: Of course.

Him: He's not going to make varsity next year.

Me: Okay.

Him: He's working as hard as anyone I've coached. Harder than most. But the ceiling he has athletically isn't going to get him there.

Me: Alright.

Him: I know that's hard to hear.

Me: It is what it is.

Him: That's not what I wanted to tell you.

I waited.

Him: Three weeks ago one of my other players was having a bad practice. Really struggling. Wanted to quit. He went and sat in the dugout and your son went and sat with him.

Me: Okay.

Him: I was about to go over. But I stopped because I wanted to see what he'd do.

Him: He didn't tell him it would be fine. Didn't give him a speech. He just sat there with him for a few minutes. And then he said something I couldn't hear. And the kid laughed. And they went back out.

I didn't say anything.

Him: I've been coaching for twenty years. That's not something you can teach. That's character. That's just who someone is.

He looked at me.

Him: I don't know what you're doing at home but whatever it is, keep doing it.

I shook his hand.

Got in my car.

Sat there.

My son came out five minutes later and knocked on the window.

Him: Why are you just sitting here?

Me: Thinking.

Him: About what?

Me: Your coach said something nice about you.

Him: About my batting?

Me: Not about your batting.

He got in the car.

Me: He told me about the kid in the dugout.

He looked uncomfortable the way teenagers do when they're caught doing something good.

Him: Tyler was having a bad day.

Me: What did you say to him? That made him laugh?

He shrugged.

Him: I told him he wasn't as bad as he thought he was. And that even if he was, baseball wasn't everything.

Me: From the kid who eats baseball?

Him: Yeah.

Me: Did you mean it?

He thought about it.

Him: I meant it for him.

Me: That counts.

We drove home.

He was on his phone within two minutes the way they are.

But I kept thinking about a sixteen year old boy deciding the right thing to do was sit down next to someone.

Not fix it.

Just sit.

There are grown adults who never learn that.

He figured it out at sixteen in a dugout on a Thursday.

I didn't say anything to my wife until that night.

She listened to the whole thing.

When I finished she was quiet.

Her: He gets that from you.

Me: I'm not like that.

Her: You absolutely are like that.

Me: I'm not a sit quietly and wait kind of person.

Her: You came and sat with me in the hospital when my mother was sick and you didn't say a single word for three hours and it was exactly what I needed.

I didn't remember it that way.

Her: You just sat. And it was everything.

I thought about that.

Me: Maybe he gets it from both of us.

Her: Maybe.

She turned off the light.

I lay there thinking about a kid who won't make varsity and a boy who sat with him anyway and whether any of the things that actually matter show up on a roster.

They don't.

But they show up everywhere else.

[Greg Hawley @gbones71]

@TheLaikYobaz Because he didn’t see it. A million times over. Coulda shoulda woulda. He just didn’t see it. An elite athlete that just missed it. Concentration was elsewhere. Have you ever missed an important moment? Athletically or otherwise?

[Greg Hawley @gbones71]

@dfwreina

[Greg Hawley @gbones71]

@ALadyNamedKatie Conversation seems to be a lost art that isn’t art at all. Just being. Radical notion of being connected without expectation of outcome

[Scott Brown @ScottBrownDC]

Just got off the phone with Mitch McConnell, he told me to hang up first. To which I said, “no you hang up first”. To which he said, “no you” and then I said, “no you”. This went on for about 20 minutes until we finally agreed to hang up on three.

[Greg Hawley @gbones71]

This was our internet

[Greg Hawley @gbones71]

@Shikandar92 Slapper ain’t no slouch

[Greg Hawley @gbones71]

@Joseph_Fasano_ You are doing amazing work!

[Greg Hawley @gbones71]

@MLB I’ve seen this video a hundred times and I just never get tired of it

[MLB @MLB]

His friends were able to get the attention of Pirates' outfielder Bryan Reynolds and they went wild after he got thrown a baseball for his birthday 😮🔥

#MLB #Baseball #Sports

[Mark Duplass @MarkDuplass]

This is me 20 years ago. I am filming (and sleeping) in this rental house with friends. The Puffy Chair has recently premiered at Sundance. I am in a healthy relationship with the love of my life. After years of relentlessly pushing myself through the struggle, everything is finally working. I look so happy. Everyone can see it and is commenting on it.

Not long after this picture is taken is when I have a nervous breakdown. I don't see it coming. It brings me to my knees. Thankfully, the story ends well. I'm able to build myself back up with therapy, medication, exercise, consistent sleep, etc. In some ways, that breakdown was a gift to help me become the person I am now. It certainly made me a kinder, gentler father/husband/friend/collaborator/mentor. But it almost broke me.

Today is the last day of Men's Mental Health Month. Please remember that you can't always see what's going on from the outside. Sometimes it looks "happy." Check on your loved ones. Check in with yourself. And if you or someone you know is heading somewhere scary, @988Lifeline is a text/chat/call away.

[Three Year Letterman @3YearLetterman]

@JoJoFromJerz One for every war we’ve won. I recommended actually learning some history

[Katie @ALadyNamedKatie]

Oh hey @Hyundai I’m currently stranded OUT OF STATE BY MYSELF because my transmission blew and now I have to wait until the week of July 15th for a new one THAT’S COVERED BY WARRANTY

Meanwhile, I’m having to pay out of pocket for the hotel, the tow, rental, and the diagnostics. I missed reservations and a whole work day being stranded because of this. No loner vehicle either, like I was literally stranded in the middle of the Adirondacks because of this.

HOW IS THIS OKAY?!

[Greg Hawley @gbones71]

79

[Sehrish 🧢 @SqSehrish]

Only 1% of people can solve this sequence correctly

Can you? 💀

[Greg Hawley @gbones71]

@hicasamadim 9

[Greg Hawley @gbones71]

30% of the time it works all the time….and that’s if you’re good😂

[Jermaine Curtis @JermaineCurtis]

Major cheat code for hitting: Before you step into the box, tell yourself you're going to win. Not maybe. Not hopefully. Tell yourself. Out loud. "I'm going to crush this baseball." Say it with conviction. Because when you hear yourself say it, something changes. Your focus changes. Your body language changes. Your intent changes.

Because theres one thing I've learned as a player who played 25 years:

The moment you tell yourself you're going to win, you start acting like someone who does.

[Benjamin James @IAmBenJames]

Adam and Eve lost the Eden because they got one-shotted by dualism: infected by the concept of good and evil, they began judging... And it started with themselves. They felt shame, the need to wear clothes... The ego was born. This exile from Eden depicts the loss of direct experience of Life and Being, shuttered behind the mind's constant judging. I'm finding my self slipping thru the cracks more and more often, back into the garden, by withdrawing my attention from the thinking-mind and gently attending to direct experience--returning to non-judgmental, raw awareness without. There I find unreasonable Bliss.

[Joseph Fasano @Joseph_Fasano_]

saves me every time