Tennis has been a much favored game of mine. I always watched it with a certain likeness that is reserved for only those one or two sports in your life.

I remember it was love at first sight. My father used to follow tennis closely, specially the grand slams. As I grew up to understand sports, I began sitting in with him to watch some of those games and picked up a strong affinity for the game.

Unfortunately, that love only remained on screen. Growing up in small towns in India, I never got an opportunity to play the game, always ending up with cricket, football, or badminton. I even played hockey for a while.

And then as life happens, things moved on and while I got to bigger cities with better facilities, the thought of picking up tennis never crossed my mind.

Until, looking for something more fun, I ended up on a tennis court last year. In all honesty, I had actually gone to check if my daughter could join a coaching class in the neighborhood. But as I stood in the court, my mind challenged me to take up the game myself.

I enrolled for it then, along with my wife and of course our daughter. We played on the weekends initially and then over some of the weekdays also. Over a six month period, my love for the game increased as I started appreciating what goes into a player’s mind.

However, with the move from India to the US, I had to discontinue playing for a while as other things took priority. Luckily for us though, we found a place with a tennis court across the lane!

I played again this week for a while. As I took it easy, I wouldn’t say that I am back in full flow. But it felt good. Good to be back on the court, swinging the racket, judging the ball, giving it my all.

Well, there is a lot of re-calibration that I will need to do to get back to the level where I had reached playing every week in Bangalore. But that day, as we finished the evening practice and headed home, something echoed in my mind.

I realized that I was back at the same level as I was after I had played for a couple of months. Within that time, I had picked up the swinging, I had started judging the ball, I had the chops to run cross court. But I still needed to practice more from the baseline. I needed to get a better feel of running in to hit a short volley. And I definitely needed to practice my service more.

It’s the same in life also I figured!

At times we start doing something and keep getting better at it. And then we stop for some reason. After a while, all those calibrations we made within ourselves, with our technique, with our approach, get reset. And we have to re-calibrate.

Most of us give up when the first round of calibrations are happening. Just like those who start a new year resolution and then give up within the first month. Thinking, it is too much to do.

Some of us give up when we stop in between and other things take priority. Just like when we start exercising regularly or eating better and then due to bad health or irregular timings, we give that up. It’s too difficult to restart and re-calibrate, and we go back to our earlier self.

Very few of us tend to maintain what we started. And continue on that path. Even if there are breaks and we have to re-calibrate. Because, what is more fun is to continue the journey than worry about the destination. And then, as we continue on our path, what we do becomes second nature to us. Ask those habitual early risers or daily joggers.

Hopefully, I can continue to enjoy this re-calibration and get back to playing tennis at least at the same level I was at in Bangalore, before I pick it up even further. Let’s see how I serve this one…