My Two Cents: Show Time
There are no dress rehearsals for the game of life!
That’s one big difference between The Game of Life and every other game.
I had a friend, during my college days, who was a star football player. He would always tell me about the routine practices and drills – mostly because he needed someone to listen to his complaints.
“Hit and drop, hit and drop”, he would say mocking his football coach’s mantra. Everyday he and his teammates would spend hours performing tackling and blocking drills, simulating real game play. As a result, they were prepared and conditioned to play well during the actual game.
They were prepared to take the most vicious hits as well as give them out because they practiced those dreaded drills. I would watch my friend as he would absorb the most brutal blows. Then I would watch him bounce right back and then break away for a long gain or a miraculous touchdown.
But, in the game of life, unlike football, there are no ‘dress rehearsals’, no practice drills for falling down. In life there is nothing but living, that can prepare you for having to deal with the realities of getting tackled by failure or blocked by obstacles.
In life, the game is always on so you might as well play at 100%.
You are in and everything does count!
Imagine being able to bounce right back from a fall, or being able to breeze right by an imposing obstacle. Consider that you can prepare to do that everyday by playing 100%. Every time that you are willing to risk falling down, you can practice getting back up until, like in the game of football, getting up is just second nature.
In The Game of Life, unlike the game of football, playing and practicing occur simultaneously. Your training and your development take place as you play in ‘real time’, and your ability to take a hit or a fall and rebound from it, comes down to “practice as you play”.
Ultimately, how successful you are and how well you play, is dependent on how much you choose to risk and how hard you choose to play. The more you risk and the harder you play the easier it will be to deal with whatever comes your way, and the better you’ll become at playing in The Game of Life.
Practice while you play by playing 100% all of the time. And, like my football friend, those hits that once upon a time, threatened to keep you down, will serve to build you up, strengthen your resolve and set you up to break away for a long gain or even a miraculous touchdown.
That’s my two cent’s (for whatever it’s worth).
Auguste Roc
auguste@danaroc.com
