A several years ago, I remember bowling against a bowler who was a regional PBA guy who was very well known and now into his 50's.  He almost missed an stone 8 pin and I remarked "that was close", and he replied, he had 17 inches to hit that pin and as long as it fell over he was happy.

Later I asked him more about it, and all he said was, you'll see when you get my age.

Well, now I am his age, and I think I get it.  When I was younger, I was upset when I threw a brooklyn.  Today, hooray, I don't have to shoot a spare.  LOL  Now I do not celebrate brooklyn's by any means.  I will just walk off the lane, or try to figure out why it happened but I no longer am upset.

And now, I am the older guy that the younger bowlers are asking why I didn't get upset?  And I'll simply tell them, did it strike?  Goal accomplished.

But I watch the younger guys, and they are like I was; mad at a brooklyn.

Just curious if others feel the same way?

To answer your question age does change your point of view.  With age so comes knowledge or wisdom for most. So that in itself makes you look differently at the way you go about it.  when i was in my 20s i was a hot headed mofo pissed at every brooklyn and every bad break pounding ball returns trowing stuff punch bathroom equipment etc.  now i realize i was only a victim of myself all those so called bad luck shots or brooklyns were all mistakes i threw cause the ball not doing what it suppose to thru the pins and i was too naive to realize what was going on.  Nowadays i know what is going on usually know what it is gonna be when the ball leaves my hand. If i get a so called bad break i shrug it off and move on to the next shot.

I won't say that I did the same, but I did internalize a lot of it, and beat myself up for making horrid shots..

But the one thing that made it worse for a lot of people (putting my hand up) is that as kids, we start to think that we should throw it harder to fix the problem (whether it be out of frustration or natural instinct) instead of listening to what the ball and pattern are telling you.

Nowadays, in growing older, we tend to think smarter, not harder. We know we need to adjust instead of trying to muscle it. It's a lesson to learn, and it helps all of us (youths included) to learn that as soon as we can.

BL.