So I'm about to break a pretty big personal rule bare with me... I'm about to use a sports reference in real life. I'm truly sorry, I'll make it quick.
So next week, football season starts. We all start the weekly ritual of waking up early on Sunday so we can affect the rate of our heartbeat over and over again. We eat wings and drink beer to slow it down, then five minutes later, our team does something ridiculous, good or bad, to speed it up to an equally unhealthy level, then, after half time we repeat the process. It's okay though because between Sunday afternoon and Monday night, we take a break.
If you pay attention to the game though, you're bound to hear an announcer, in reference to a young, maturing quarterback, say something about how "the game is really slowing down for him".
For anyone who doesn't give an itch about football, allow me to explain, because after playing Madden football for 15 years, if there's one I can understand, it's that listening to football commentators is like going to a 4th grade violin recital; They try oh so hard, but the message is lost completely.
Football is a ridiculously difficult game that, when you break it down, is almost a practice in military strategy. In America, we've taken the superstars of football who have been successful at this epic game, and given them almost Greek Mythology positions in our society. Joe Namath, Tom Brady, Walter Payton, Barry Sanders, Don Shula, Bill Bellichik... It's ridiculous. Anyways, the game is a complicated game that only few men have been able to climb to the top of.
The game slowing down in football terms is when a quarterback plays in one of those epic games, and at some point experiences a huge moment. The light bulb goes off in his head, he "gets it" and from that point on, he understands the game better than every day previous, and any other man in his shoes. As he looks around the field, he sees things with a level of understanding he hadn't had until that point. He knows where his teammates are, and he can almost feel the presence of the other team's players before he can see them. The crowd noise becomes a whisper in his head, and furthermore, he becomes comfortable telling the crowd to shut their mouths every once in a while.
Lately, I've been feeling like I can relate to that. Allow me to explain as best I can and hope that you will relate and respond accordingly. It's all I've got...
I'm out here in San Diego, California for a little over 2 more weeks. It's been a whirlwind of life experience these last 2 years and change. Ups, downs, higher ups and lower downs, and I can't honestly say 2 and a half years has ever gone by quicker.
Coming out on the other side of things, as I always do, I'm looking back with a mental notepad, going over it all through my head. Asking myself all the important questions; the Hows and Whys. Not because I want to feel okay about anything, this experience has been incredible and at times overwhelming and I am more than appreciative of that. I ask the questions in the spirit of understanding. My skin is tougher than it's ever been before, my resolve more spirited, the screws holding my head to my shoulders seem a little tighter, and this game of life is beginning to feel like it's maybe, possibly slowing down.
As I usually bring up in most of these bloggings, I think we all, at least once a day, feel like this world and this life is so huge. At least once a day, I find myself looking around saying to myself... "son of a bitch... this is crazy." People everywhere, more being born every day. Buildings everywhere, but there's never enough. Technology slapping us in the face for not keeping up. I mean, when I was a kid, the phone would ring at your grandma's house, and everyone would race to pick it up so they could hear who it was. Today, while waiting for the bus, I returned an email to someone on my phone, yes MY phone. A phone that when you call, you can expect to hear only my voice (remember when you had to ask "is _____ there?") then checked a bus schedule on the same phone, then proceeded to go back to listening to music that was being streamed at CD quality, from a satellite 1000s of miles above my head in outer space. It's moments like those that make you feel so incredibly insignificant to this whole game being played, like... "really, what the hell CAN you do"?
So what is it for each of us that makes "the game slow down?" Am I complacent, or too comfortable with my surroundings? Am I just now showing that arrogance that young people are so known for possessing where I feel invisible? Or, to keep things on a positive , am I seasoned, cured and ripe; ready for picking. Has the amalgamation of my life experiences finally brought me to a point where things are beginning to make sense in my head? I say beginning to make sense, because by know means, am I trying to express that "I've got it all figured out". I look around at the people I admire and hold in high respect and it seems like most of them have developed the confidence that I so admire, through going through as many experiences as possible, while maintaining the most open of minds throughout those experiences. Letting those experiences flavor them.
When we're very little, the world doesn't have to make sense at all. I was a kid in a family a bit below the average American income. I was raised by two very loving, hardworking parents, and an equally hardworking, loving grandma and family of aunts, uncles and cousins. When both of my parents had to work in the summer, my sister and I would spend the day at grandma's house. Our fun times consisted of spinning out the burnt out back tires on a busted big wheel as we careened down a 45 degree angled hill (that grandma didn't know we were driving down), climbing trees and getting poison ivy in the woods, and "shooting hoops", in which the hoop was a milk crate nailed to a tree in a gravel driveway. I didn't know shit about existentialism or human responsibility and I couldn't even tell you what letters were in the word philosophy, let alone spell it. I probably thought it started with an F. I knew when it rained, you got a coat, and if you heard a jingle in the summer, pull up a couch cushion and start searchin', cause the ice cream man is on the way. Then, in adolescence, the world is so overwhelming that you find yourself letting it tell you what to do. You just strap in and try to find a comfy seat on the ride while you try to figure out why you're getting hair in funny places and girls are making your stomach feel funny. Now, at age 27, things finally feel different. I can stand up and as things come my way, I can at least have an understanding of what they are, and a base of what to expect from my actions. It's a great feeling, but with it comes packaged in a buy one get one free deal with the greatest feeling of all.
Like the quarterback in the football game, I see things taking shape in front of me, and beyond that, I finally feel like I'm in control of what happens next. Because I can see the way things are working and the game has slowed down for me, I now kinda feel like I'm standing in a giant story book that I'm writing as I go.
Whether or not you say hello to someone, whether or not you help that person across the street, or give that person your seat on the bus, or spend that Saturday night working on a project or going out and getting tuned up, whether or not you shake the fear off of your shoulders and go for that job "you probably won't get", whether or not you run that red light, or make that phone call you were afraid to make to that girl you didn't think would give you the time of day, or call your parents just to say you love them, or tell that person that treated you like shit exactly how you feel, or take that drug at the party, or vote for that candidate that for a moment truly made you feel good about the future.
There are always going to be moments in life where things don't make sense, but one thing remains; Every single thing we do in our lives come down to making a decision and those decisions affect the entire world around us. At times, we feel like those decisions don't matter, we feel like the game of life is overwhelming, out of our hands and too much to handle so we sit on the sideline and just let decisions be made by those actually playing the game. In this game of Life, these decisions are the difference between a game winning touchdown and a sack. The more we can look this thing in the face and work towards the outcome we want, the more this game slows down for us all and those decisions can come to us quicker and more naturally.
As I sign off, one final thing... hold me to it... I promise, I've made my final "Fuel of Life" sports reference. Now... ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL!?!?!?!?
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