I dug into the batter’s box and stared out toward the infield.
Each of the three bases had a teammate of mine standing on it. With one mighty swing, I could bring them all home.
It was the scenario every baseball player dreams about. But it was up to me to write that storybook ending.
So, I set my stance. I readied my bat. I stared intently at the pitcher as he wound up and released the ball.
The pitch veered my way. It wasn’t going to be hittable, so I tried to let it pass.
But the baseball kept riding closer and closer to my hands — until it clanged of the base of my right thumb.
The home plate umpire immediately shouted Hit Batter and pointed toward first base. I jogged in that direction, as my teammate on third base jogged toward home plate.
By the time I got to first base, my hand was beginning to throb. I looked over at my coach — who was standing nearby — and grimaced.
Hurts so good, don’t it? he asked. Shake it off. You drove in a run.
I took those words as gospel. And I paid the pain in my right thumb no further mind.
That pitch clanged off my thumb more than half my life ago.
And yet, I still remember the incident like it was yesterday.
For it was the first foray into toughness. The first time where my taking it on the chin — or the hand, as it were — brought anything other than unbridled agony.
This time, such an act brought applause and praise. And I was enthralled by the adulation.
So, I made toughness part of my persona. I stopped bemoaining my aches and pains. And I started treating them as badges of honor instead.
My rationale was straightforward. If John Wayne didn’t complain about bumps and bruises, neither should I. If Chuck Norris could dust himself off after taking a blow, so could I.
That meant bouncing back to my feet each time I fell. It meant postponing a trip to the doctor or urgent care if something was nagging me. It meant keeping that upper lip stiff and complaints to a minimum.
I thought that my grit and resilience proofed my tough I was. But it turns out I knew far less about toughness than I thought.
I sat on the floor and carefully unstrapped my protective walking boot. As I stared out at my right leg, I flexed my foot upwards and downwards.
With each movement, I felt the tendons around my ankle tighten in resistance. The pain made me grimace.
It had been like this for days, ever since my surgery.
My refurbished ankle was wrapped in bandages like a burrito. And most of the day, those bandages were shielded by my bulky walking boot. My entire lower leg had become an enigma to me.
Those few moments where I shed the boot to change clothes were precious. The flexing exercises were my only opportunities to get a sense of my recovery.
And I didn’t like what I felt.
The blunt ankle discomfort I’d experienced before the operation was gone. But now this intense tendon tightness had taken its place.
My range of motion was in shambles. And so was my confidence.
There would be no quick return to form. I would need weeks of Physical Therapy and plenty of patience to get my ankle functional again.
And even with all this work ahead of me, there was a chance that the tightness and pain would linger. There was a chance I’d never be as I once was.
I had brought all this on myself. For I had elected for this surgery, without a hint of hesitation.
The choice seemed as natural as could be. I had been hobbled by a couple of ankle injuries and viewed the process of going under the knife as a Second Level Risk. I yearned for improved mobility and accepted the potential downsides of my decision.
But I hadn’t understood the depth of those consequences until this moment. It was only when that tendon tightness started to take hold that I truly felt the full gravity of what I’d done.
As I stared into the abyss of uncertainty, I realized I had two options. I could throw in the towel and accept my compromised state. Or I could devote myself to a lengthy rehabilitation without any guaranteed returns.
I chose the latter.
It’s been quite some time since I made that choice to face the darkness. That decision hasn’t affected my physical recovery all that much.
Even so, this experience has changed the way I see the world. And it’s shifted the way I see myself.
Several years ago, here on Words of the West, I shared the saga of Jim Stockdale.
Stockdale, a U.S. Naval pilot, spent seven years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. He emerged from the ordeal with a Medal of Honor. And he was later elevated to the rank of Vice Admiral.
Surviving seven years of wartime captivity required plenty of physical resilience. Stockdale absorbed the blinding pain of torture, encountering starvation and sleep deprivation along the way.
But it was Stockdale’s mental fortitude that proved most critical to his survival. Other prisoners gave into despair or fell prey to delusions of an imminent rescue. But not Stockdale.
Stockdale stared right into the abyss, determined yet realistic. He would later define his mental model with clarity and eloquence.
You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end — which you can never afford to lose — with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
These words have come to be known as The Stockdale Paradox. And they’ve become an ethos for everything from psychological resistance training to business strategy.
Yet, they can also serve as the definition of toughness. They can, and perhaps they should.
You see, toughness is not about ignoring the alarm bells of your central nervous system. It’s not about popping back up off the mat when you’ve been knocked down.
No, toughness is about assessing our impairments and vulnerabilities, accepting their continued presence, and finding the courage to carry on.
Toughness requires us to rewire our brains. It demands that we take a sledgehammer to the concept of psychological safety. It forces us to lean into uncertainty at a seemingly unbearable level.
These are not small asks. But they are attainable.
My recovery from ankle surgery serves as a small example of this. My tribulations appear as a drop of water next to Stockdale’s ocean. But the experience has proven my mettle in a way that no baseball to the thumb ever could.
I now know what true toughness is. And that knowledge will serve me well for the rest of my life.
Many of us will never experience true toughness.
We will never come face to face with our own mortality in a faraway Prisoner of War camp. We will never need to ask ourselves if we’ll be able to walk normally again.
Our lives will remain unencumbered. And for that, we don’t owe anyone any apologies.
But there is one thing we can still do. One change that we simply should make.
We can stop conflating grit and resilience with toughness.
We can. We should. We must.
Shaking off bruises is commendable. Getting back on our feet is notable. But it doesn’t make us tough.
No, dear reader, that moniker demands a higher pedestal. So, let’s take it off the ground and lift it back up to where it belongs.