|
Today's
Meditation:
There
are many analogies that compare life to a game.
Sometimes it's a game on the field between competitors, and
other times it's a board game that you have to go through
many obstacles in order to solve. In all of the cases,
the analogies assume that we're players in the game, not
just spectators who are sitting in the stands watching other
people do what they do.
Unfortunately,
many people have relegated themselves to the position of
spectator. My guess is that usually, they don't even
realize that they've done so until it's far too late for
them to do anything about it. Years can go by that end
up being lost years if we're not careful, and that would be
a shame.
While
I don't believe that life is competition, as many of the
people who make these analogies would have us believe, I do
believe that it's important for us to be active participants
in our lives rather than passive observers. Not all of
us will be starters or stars, but we sure can do a good job
helping to train the starters, helping to teach them the
important lessons of love and respect and dignity and
honor. It's widely known in the cycling world that
those people who win major races have the strongest teams
behind them. Some of the best players in football
never have gone to the Super Bowl because they don't have
strong teams supporting them; Tom Brady won the game in his
first year as a starting quarterback because he was part of
an organization that stressed team above all else-- they
refused to be introduced as individuals at the start of the
game, choosing instead to be introduced as a team.
Get
in there and play whatever role your life calls for you to
play. Play it with pride and with dignity, and be a
role model for those who will come after you and have
different roles to play. Don't just sit on the
sidelines and wish you were out there-- put yourself out
there in the thick of things and enjoy it as much as you
can. You will die someday, and you don't know when
that will be. Make sure that on the day you day, you
can say "I certainly gave it all that I got," and
then you can leave this world with a smile.
|
