I find it so interesting that in the game of baseball, 95% of mound visits occur when the pitcher is NOT performing at his best!

Someone recently shared a comic depicting the scene of a baseball catcher visiting the pitcher’s mound, and the pitcher saying, “I just think it would be nice if you visited when I was doing well, too.”

It is easy to criticize and point out flaws in someone else (and ourselves!). It is easy to perform the “mound visit” when the “pitcher” needs to be told how to correct himself and make changes. However, just because that is the easier option, does not mean it is the most growth-conducive option. Just because it is the more normal option (to focus on the negative), does not mean it is the right option for me to do.

In life, it is so important to appreciate and celebrate the good times and the successful moments, perhaps even more often than we critique and criticize our bad ways and habits. When we take notice of the good in people, it can help us spiritually and emotionally reframe and see ourselves and others in a truly positive light.

Practically speaking, in the game of baseball, it could be it is not realistic for the catcher to perform a mound visit every time the pitcher throws a wonderful pitch or makes an impressive play. I get that. But, practically speaking, in the game of life, it is not realistic to expect that others will change when we only point out their flaws. We must learn to reframe and create an environment where we celebrate, revel, and rejoice when someone succeeds and does something positive.

At the very end of Parshas Vayechi, which also marks the end of Sefer Bereishis, the Torah says: וימת יוסף בן מאה ועשר שנים… – “Yosef died at the age of 110 years, and they embalmed him, and he was placed in a coffin in Egypt” (50:26).

A few years ago, Rav Kostelwitz shlit”a pointed out to me that the Torah says that Yosef died at the age of 110 (above), and a few pesukim earlier it says that “Yosef lived – ויחי – 110 years” (50:22). It seems to be redundant, doesn’t it? The Rav explained that although Yosef had many hardships and challenges, although he had a tough life, although so many things seemed to be negative and not good, still, the chiddush of Yosef’s life was that it was in the realm of ויחי – he lived! He lived his life with the understanding that everything was טוב, good. So yes, Yosef died at the age of 110. But guess what? He LIVED for 110 years in goodness and positivity.

Let us be like Yosef and choose to focus on all the good that we have. Let us celebrate those moments of success and appreciate the positivity in our lives. Ensure that our “mound visits” to our spouses, our children, our friends, and ourselves, are focused – primarily – on the good!

Have a holy Shabbos!