If you’re about to start feeling bad for me—don’t. I injured myself in about the stupidest way you can imagine, and now I’m living with the well-deserved consequences.

To be fair, this didn’t happen yesterday. This happened in December of 2025 (four months prior to the time that I’m writing this). I gave myself time to heal and I decided to make a concerted effort to see what I could learn from this situation. Of course, I already knew that smacking a wall is not a good idea, but what other less-obvious lessons could I learn from the experience?

Yes, I fractured my finger by smacking a wall. I told you not to feel bad for me. Shockingly, it was not intentional. Here’s what happened:

Some Sundays, when the weather is nice, some friends host volleyball at their house. I love it. I love sports, and everyone there is nice and has a good time.

On one fateful Sunday, I went over to their house to play volleyball. When I arrived, a game was already being played. In this case, I had to occupy my time until I could join the next game—no problem. I spotted one of my good friends there, and he invited me to play Gaga. Gaga is a simple game played within the confines of a polygonal wooden perimeter.

It looked like this:

The point of the game is to smack a ball (basically a dodgeball) into the legs of your opponents. The person towards whom the ball is being smacked must protect their legs in order to not be sent out of the game. 

Anyway, my friend, three other people, and I hopped into this tiny Gaga pit. The game started, and after a couple of non-scoring exchanges, I recovered the ball. My turn. (Muwahahahahaha!) 😈

I locked my target in my sight: my friend. I wound up. Pow! The ball went flying, and so did my hand…into the wall. Immediately, I knew I had injured it. I firmly held my swinging hand in my other hand, scared to let go. The game stopped and everyone was asking if I was okay. I’d be fine, I assured them, though I was praying that it wasn’t a break. I iced it, and have been trying not to put too much weight on it to this day. I’m sure it’ll heal more over time, but it’s not yet back to 100%.

Okay, so obviously smacking a wall isn’t a good idea. But, what course of events led me to smack the wall? How could I have avoided it (besides of the obvious, of course), and what can I learn that’ll keep me from injuring myself again? Are there any more hidden lessons here that can be generalized to other things in life?

I will share what I have learned, but I bet you can think of things that I haven’t considered. I believe we can both learn from this. After all, one of the main themes of Brian’s Blog is learning from mistakes, both made personally and by others. Here, I’ll be learning from my mistake, and you have the benefit of learning from it too without having to fracture your own finger.

Pay attention to your surroundings. Being hyper-focused, or “locked-in” as the kids say, is an amazingly useful skill to have. HOWEVER! You must first acclimatize to your environment. Smacking the ball as hard as I could may not have been a big deal or have resulted in an injury if I took a few minutes to physically orient myself in the arena. 

Because I started smacking with the force of a thousand suns before becoming fully comfortable with my surroundings, I was punished. Had I properly ordered my competitive spirit by subordinating it to my learning spirit, rather than prioritizing it, I most likely would not have made such a mistake.

Don’t start at 100%. Calm down; it’s just a game. Following lesson #1, ease your way into the force-of-a-thousand-suns-smacking. You, hopefully, wouldn’t attempt your PR (personal record) lift in the gym immediately after walking in. You’d first warm up in some form or fashion. The same can be said here. Sure, I’m not likely to become physically injured by smacking a ball really hard (unless I hit a wall), but there’s still no good reason to go so hard right out of the gate.

People are rarely injured when they gradually increase intensity in an exercise. People are injured when they do more than they are capable of, or when they push their boundaries unsafely. I made this mistake here by not easing into the activity. I started at 100%. Unless you’re an MMA fighter or a sprinter, starting at 100% is probably not a good idea. Pace yourself.

I hate to be preachy, but I’m going to do it anyway. The most important lesson isn’t what I learned when I fractured my finger, but in how I treated myself afterward. Notice the language I used in the first few paragraphs. I first identified that I’m not a victim here. I did this to myself. Additionally, I identified that I did something stupid. I admitted fault and DID something stupid. I am not stupid! There is a huge distinction.

There are victims in life, both victims by choice and by chance. Similarly, there are stupid people in life, both stupid by choice and by chance. Do not choose to be a victim. If you choose to do something stupid, you must suffer the consequences. It’s not someone else’s fault. By the same token, don’t engage in negative self-talk. We all do stupid things. I smack walls. Doing something stupid, or even regularly doing stupid things does NOT make you stupid. Separate those two things. Give yourself grace—you’re human.

The biggest lesson is to find humor in bad situations, when appropriate. It’s funny (to me, at least), that I can tell a story about being so gaga about Gaga that I smacked my fingers into a wall and fractured one. Of course, if I broke my finger and sustained permanent injury, it would be much tougher to not be very harsh in blaming myself. I do blame myself, but I was fortunately let off with minor consequences.

Nevertheless, I did something stupid, but that doesn’t make me stupid. I victimized myself by my actions, but I’m not a victim. These things are not my identity and they don’t define me. As Caveman Brian would put it, “You, not stupid. Don’t beat self up. Don’t make self victim. Find humor in bad thing.”