The Fortune of Misfortune
The smaller they are, the lighter they fall
When I was ten years old, I was the kid who always been snuck his Nintendo DS into bed to play Pokemon. I would even try to sneak it outside if my parents forced me to play outside. These were the origins of my nerdiness!
Then we got a driveway basketball hoop and it my life. Suddenly I would spend every hour from school’s end until bedtime in my driveway. I even asked for a big construction light for my birthday so I could shine it on the driveway and play later into the night!
The problem is that I probably peaked in sixth grade. After that, I was never good enough to be that guy on my teams. I was always good enough to make the team but nobody ever relied on me to put the ball in the basket.
I was just barely good enough to squeak my way onto prep school and college teams.
During my sophomore year in college, my knee pain became excruciating. I saw doctors, physical therapists… everyone I could! No diagnosis. The knee pain got so bad, I was popping at least five Advils before practice, and sometimes at halftime during games. It was time to hang ‘em up. I quit competitive basketball.
I was heartbroken. I kept believing until my last day that I could make the leap in skills to become a dependable scorer on my team and play at the highest level. But then recently, I had a realization about that situation. I was focusing on all the bad.
But what if I were really good. What if I was actually so fortunate that I was NBA-bound before I got injured. I would have been unrelentingly miserable! I would live the rest of my life thinking “what if…”.
“The less fortune has given, the less can she take away”
(The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, 491)
There’s a silver lining to a lack of good fortune. It’s similar to the saying, the bigger they are the harder they fall.
Whenever I take time to be purposefully grateful, either in my head or in a journal entry, I always think of what I HAVE. But there’s plenty I’m grateful to NOT have.
I’m grateful I wasn’t a world class athlete because how awful would it have been to lose it all.
I’m grateful I didn’t get into my first choice college because I loved my college experience as it was.
I’m grateful I didn’t get the job I wanted after college because I’ve grown so much on the journey of starting my own venture.
The lesson is… there’s more to be grateful for than we see at first glance. There’s even fortune in misfortune.
Question of The Day
What are you grateful for today that seemed like a disaster at the time?
Your Biggest Fan,
Noah BigNerd Sochaczevski