Taking Time for Yourself

I started officiating youth basketball in 1993. At the time, I was a volunteer coach but was asked to officiate on the side. Since I was young and officiating paid, I decided to give it a shot. In 2002, I made a jump in high school officiating. It was a good move for I thought I had gotten a bit stale just doing my youth basketball for so long.

As the 2011-2012 high basketball season approaches, I think I have hit another crossroad. I went a tough period from April onward with various situations. As I have worked to get past the situations, I have realized that my enthusiasm for basketball officiating had diminished.

At first, it was alarming to feel that way. But as a friend pointed out, I had been doing this constantly for nearly 20 years and my body was telling me it was a time for a change. For years I had told myself that it was great to get paid to exercise and officiate. Alas, I have realised the tradeoff is you give up a lot of personal time. I think I have come to the point where my personal time is more important. I could always do other exercise and make money doing something else.

While nothing is set in stone, I have some ideas to refresh myself. One of them has been youth volleyball. I haven't officiated a ton of games but I have been enjoying myself out there. The other is to explore writing sports stories and blogging more.  I've been doing a lot of photography and plan to do that more as well.

The main point is that we all need to take time for ourselves and if you are feeling a little weary, there is nothing wrong trying something new

(Edited on 10/22/11):  After thinking about things for a little bit, I decided to a leave of absence from officiating high school basketball for the 2011-2012 season.   I had thought about this a little bit during the summer but with a lot going on, it wasn't a priority for me to think about it.   However, as the various meetings kick off for officiating, I realized I didn't want officiating to eat into my personal time.   I am not stopping officiating completely as I could still do some youth basketball.  But for this season, I will be on the sidelines watching high school games rather than being a part of it.

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