Obsession

I used to think obsession was the key to success, now I realize it’s a disease.

Shortly after the collegiate baseball season was cancelled in March of 2020, I moved back home to be with my family. Initially, I was thrilled. After a rough start to my sophomore season I was finally going to have time to work on my craft without any distractions. I was going to bring back the old Luke who used to be able to compete at a high level.

After a couple of weeks of training, though, baseball started to become a prison. My mind had become obsessed with investing copious amounts of time into drills I thought would improve my pitching mechanics. I would throw through constant pain - chasing the result of higher velocity through efficient movement. I was obsessed with the idea there was always room for improvement.

This is all on top of the fact I wasn’t able to spend my time anywhere else because of a global pandemic. Baseball was the only thing that brought me outside the house so I would spend at least 4-5 hours a day working out, stretching, throwing and doing drill work. At first it was what I looked forward to the most about my day, but after a while, the process I put in place for myself started to feel more like a chore than a utopia.

My performance had been so up and down throughout the summer, I had no clue how I was going to show up to campus in the Fall. I had little confidence in my ability to command a baseball with velocity, and my desire to play the game was shrinking. My only hope was maybe a new environment would be the catalyst for performing at the level I knew I could.

Fast forward through several months of overthrowing, and suddenly my arm doubles in size during a routine Monday workout. Hello.

At first, I had no clue what was happening, neither did my coaches. That continued to be the case until an ultrasound was taken the next morning. “There’s a blood clot in the main vein of your right arm - your trainer is going to take you to the first hospital with an open bed.” Thoracic Outlet Syndrome was the culprit, so I was told.

Side note: Thoracic Outlet Syndrome is common in overhead athletes (ie. baseball, volleyball, swimming, tennis, etc). A blood clot formed because every time I would throw or move my arm overhead, my first rib and clavicle would compress the vein running between the two. Pitching, combined with a couple injuries in football, were the perfect storm for Venous Thoracic Outlet Syndrome.

I’m sent to the first hospital with an open bed, and put on blood thinners immediately to prevent the clot from dislodging. I go through a procedure to attempt to break up the clot. It’s unsuccessful. I’m then informed I need surgery to remove my first rib to give the surgeons more space to remove the clot, and to prevent further clotting. I’m given the option of doing it at the current hospital I was at or scheduling it with a better surgeon for a couple weeks out.

I decide to schedule the surgery for a couple weeks later, and am put on blood thinners until then. After some imaging was done in the following weeks, I’m informed the clot had been there for at least a couple years based on the amount of collateral veins my body had developed. My vein had gone from an interstate highway to a one lane dirt road over the course of several years.

This is when a lot of my questions were answered. Now I knew why I hadn’t been performing like I knew I could. Now I knew why my bicep would throb nonstop. It all made sense. It wasn’t the easiest pill to swallow though because I also felt robbed. My ability to perform had been slipping from hands ever so slowly. As my performance declined, the more I put myself through misery because I thought I wasn’t working hard enough and didn’t posses the mental fortitude.

It was during my 9 days in the two hospitals when I had the realization my identity was dominated by being a baseball player - it’s all I saw myself as. My obsession was the cause of the mental breakdowns I had while chasing those results, and ultimately what made me resent the game of baseball. Worst of all, I had been ignoring the signals my body was sending, and feeding the part of me who reminded Luke he wasn’t good enough.

Moreover, I learned diversity was the cure for my obsession. Why do financial advisors tell you to diversify you portfolio? To establish a safety net if one of your investments tank. I applied this concept to how/where I invested my time. If all of my time and identity is tied into one thing - there is no safety net. Diversifying my identity also allowed me to approach my passion from a new perspective after taking a breather in another investment.

I put diversity into action by investing more of my time into different hobbies. One of these hobbies came to fruition coincidentally. My mom had purchased the domain name lukelaflam.com, and I took this as an opportunity to create a website to publish my writing, something I loved unconditionally. It was an opportunity for me to tap into my creative mind - a part of myself I had ignored for so long.

It was truly eye opening to see the positive influence this investment had on my relationship with baseball. Although my performance changed little because of my injury, I started to enjoy showing up to the field again - which is always nice.

To this day, I still find it hard to see myself as something other than a young man who played collegiate baseball. Slowly but surely though, I’m starting to see myself as a writer, a mentor, a teacher, a golfer, a brother, a boyfriend. My worth doesn’t just come from being an athlete.

With Love,

Luke