Youth Leadership Camps Canada

Stu-Pendous Blog - Archives for September 2010

These are the thoughts of speaker, author and camp director Stu Saunders.
For Stu’s original blog, you may still access his archives here.

• This is not how it’s supposed to be?

  Sep 6, 2010

  A young boy stays awake for what seems forever, hoping and praying and thinking. He has tried for hours, days and weeks. Over and over and over he has shot the ball at the net. Sometimes it goes in, sometimes it misses completly, still other times it circles the rim three or four times and topples in… or out.

  The day comes and he is focused, he plays the scene over and over again in his head. He see’s the basketball falling though the hoop, the coach smiling and a friend giving him a well deserved high-five. He hears his dad’s words clearly, “Give it your best and the coach will do the rest. Just try your hardest.”

  It’s his turn, he lines up a the free-throw line and concentrates, like a mind-reader seeing the future. He is sure to others in the gymnasium he must look like an NBA forward bouncing the ball once, twice, quick little toss between his sweaty hands. One more bounce. He closes eyes and visualizes the ball swooshing through the hoop, nothin’ but net.

  He bends his knees, opens his eyes and releases the ball. It sails through the air like a slow motion replay. It is headed perfectly towards the net. Then, suddenly like a well pitched sinker in baseball, it seems to drop and it hits the front of the rim, bouncing off and not going in.

  “HOW?!” is all he can scream in his head. He stares at the net then the ball. He hears nothing. Then the silence is broken by the coach yelling at him to ‘move on’.

  This is not supposed to be the way it plays out. He was sure he would make the team, make his dad proud, make new friends, be popular. He runs out of the gym without taking a second shot. He quits.

  Life doesn’t have an app called “The Way it’s Supposed to Go…”. That’s the beauty and the tragedy that life is.

  The child isn’t supposed to be left by his parents. The couple is supposed to stay married forever. The dog isn’t supposed to be pushed out of a car because he’s inconvenient. The expectant mother isn’t supposed to lose her baby. The 31 year old woman isn’t supposed to be stricken with breast cancer. Friends aren’t supposed to lie to you. Large corporations and powerful politicians aren’t supposed to be crooked and dishonest. People and religions shouldn’t be intolerable. Insert whatever you want.

  But they are.

  So what do we do? What do you and I do? Adapt. Change, Try. Breathe. Grow. Accept. Move on. Fight back. Organize. Care more. Write more. Tolerate more. Dream more! We must learn from our mistakes. Increase our awareness and make better choices.

  The world needs more people to expect less, assume nothing and dream bigger… MUCH BIGGER!

  You can create how your life is supposed to be. None of us are entitled to anything. It must be earned and developed and nourished. It’s up to us to make it how it’s supposed to be.

  This school year, be a doer not an expecter! Make your year what it could be. Make your day how you want it to be, how it’s supposed to be.

  
  

  Posted by Stu Saunders in Leadership on Sep 6, 2010 at 8:08 pm | Permanent Link | Comments (6)

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