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You are in the midst of playing in the championship basketball game of the season, and it is your turn to take the ball out. You are at your end of the court with 1.2 seconds left to play. The score is tied. As you are standing out-of-bounds to throw the ball in, you know that this next pass will be one of the most important of today’s game. Then suddenly, you realize that you don’t recognize any of the faces on the court. In fact, you don’t even know which of the players are on your team or which are opponents. You start to panic as vomit is slowly sneaking its way up the back of your throat. These next questions are all you can think about: What is going on? How will we ever win this game now?
Today, I have the answers. And today…I am going to share with you exactly how you can win this game. While this victory is certain to be achieved, I bet the answer will end up surprising you…
As a young teenager, I always loved to babysit little children. So when this one little girl entered into my life at only three years old, my whole world changed. She was the sweetest and happiest little girl I had ever met! She was so beautiful inside and out even at such a young age. And she always seemed wise beyond her years.
Now you can imagine, as we both grew up, that she continues to be an important part of my life. Her energy, her sweetness, her positivity, her beauty…she still has it all! And even though I babysat her and even though I taught her a thing or two when she was younger, well, let’s just say that the roles have now changed. With her light that she continues to shine onto this world, I find myself striving to grow from what I now learn from her. What a twist of fate I would have never imaged back when I was a young teenager!
A while back, when we were together, this sweet friend of mine surprised me with a gift…for no reason at all! Basically, she came upon it and thought of me, so she wanted me to have it. She bought me a devotional journal written by Marshawn Evans Daniels entitled, “100 Days of Believing Bigger.” Anyone who knows me knows that I love to learn and grow as a person, but I also love to learn and grow in my faith, so this journal was just the thing I needed. And when I got to Day 24, I didn’t expect the great lesson I was about to learn. On Day 24, I was given one of the best reminders of all! Ms. Daniels reminded me that whatever is happening in other people’s lives has absolutely nothing to do with what is happening in mine. Now this seems pretty simple, right?
Or is it?
Let me ask you some important questions to get you thinking: How often do you look at someone who has more success, more money, more of everything and think about what you did wrong to not have that? How many times have you compared yourself to other people when it comes to who has the bigger house or the more expensive clothes? Do you regularly catch yourself obsessing about what is happening in other people’s lives, even celebrities? And do you wish, on multiple occasions, that you actually had someone else’s life altogether?
I would like to think we all would say that we are 100% comfortable with our current existence and that we never think about others…but come on, we are only human. It’s natural to have these thoughts and these feelings. But what makes these thoughts worse is that they lead to one other problem…to one other very BIG problem…
We then catch ourselves falling into this trap of spending our life competing against others to try to “one up them”. We spend all of our time and energy in this game of “Life” competing for the biggest house, the best clothes, the most money, the largest social media following, the fancier trips, and the list never ends. We get so wrapped up in trying to beat everyone else that we forget to stop and just focus on our own dreams…our own goals. And it rarely crosses our mind to try to support others on their journey to success…. instead, we become envious.
So how do we fix this? How do we get out of this nasty cycle and figure out a way to invite success into not only our life, but into everyone else’s’ life that we come across?
Today I have these answers…
You are in the midst of this championship basketball game, and your next throw is going to be one of the most important in the match. You look around and don’t recognize any of the faces on the court. Who exactly is on your team? Who are your opponents? How will you win? And then you look a little closer and really focus in hard. Suddenly you have your answer….
You realize that every single person on that court is actually on your team. Instead of competing against each other, you are actually all working together so that everyone can win…so that everyone can be successful. And you then realize it’s actually not a championship basketball game after all…instead it’s really the game of “Life”. It’s the most important game you will ever play.
With a smile on your face, you toss the ball in from out-of-bounds. Your teammate easily shoots and scores because nobody is out there to compete with them. Everybody on the court cheers and hugs because they realize that they all just won at this game called “Life.” And the best part of it all…. they achieved this great success…together!
Xoxo
Marsha
*For those of you struggling with something in life or have a topic of interest that you want me to talk about in this blog, email me at BeYourBestSelfBlog@gmail.com. Let’s work together to Be Our Best Selves!
Photo Credit Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/ball-on-hoop-358042/