Perspective.
Thirteen years ago today, I was just an eighth grader. I was socially awkward but even then found my passion on a soccer field. My other interest at the time was taekwondo. I was thirteen, and had just been asked to join a competition team. I jumped right in, and started training for the regional tournament in order to qualify for nationals.
It was a normal Tuesday night sparring class, when I landed wrong on a move. I immediately was in excruciating pain, and could not walk. A few days later, I had an MRI and got the phone call that I had torn my Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL.) My first reaction was, “what is that?” HA! I was DEVASTATED. I remember being so upset, as if life was over.
My season was over, and of course I wouldn’t be playing soccer anytime soon either. Sports were my life at that time. My tunnel vision was so bad, that I couldn’t look past that current season of life.
Now, lets stop and think about this. Is tearing your ACL as an 8th grader really that devastatingly horrible? Nope, not really. I had surgery and healed. I went onto play seven more years of soccer, and finally did make the national tournament in taekwondo.
Now, lets stop and think about this. Is tearing your ACL as an 8th grader really that devastatingly horrible? Nope, not really. I had surgery and healed. I went onto play seven more years of soccer, and finally did make the national tournament in taekwondo.
As an adult, I can see that it really wasn’t that big of a deal at all. Life went on.
Perspective.
Perspective.
A soccer coach once told me that you can do anything for a short time. He of course was talking about running hills for 45 minutes, but it can be applied to real life too. Tearing your ACL is REALLY painful and temporarily disrupts life, but it still goes on. Running hills for 45 minutes makes you question the purpose of life, but it never lasts forever.
Perspective.
A few weeks before my grandmother went to heaven, I heard her talking about this subject with someone she had been friends with for over 30 years.
I overheard her say, “I had much worse things happen to me in life than cancer. I’m not worried about me. I know how my life is going to turn out.”
That struck me really hard. She was suffering from a really horrible cancer that she knew was going to take her. Yet, she knew that would lead her to heaven. She wasn’t super excited about the process, but she was eagerly anticipating the end result. She wasn’t tunnel visioned as I am usually guilty of being.
Perspective.
Life is rough. Adulting is rough. But, I am learning to keep things in perspective. Bad days are just as long as good days. But, what we learn and experience on bad days makes the good days so much sweeter.
The best advice I have ever received?
“Just keep on keeping on…”
“Just keep on keeping on…”