When Angry

I get angry/irritated/pissed/etc about things people say and do all the time. Here are a few things I need to remember about that so that I don’t stoke the flames of that anger.

I am angry about it. Nobody has the power to make me angry.

Please note the distinction here. I am angry about it. Nobody has the power to definitively make me angry/sad/happy/etc as if they were using the remote control to change channels on the TV. I have something to say about it, even if I don’t realize it at first. Something about me creates the experience of the emotion. It isn’t programmed or controlled from the outside. It’s influenced from within. I have something to influence about my own emotional experience. If I blame them for my experience, I am lacking clarity and limiting my possibilities for other emotional experiences about the situation/person, such as love and compassion.

2) Just because I am angry doesn’t mean the other person is wrong/bad/irritating/etc. I can’t feel or perceive objective truths about other people. I can have thoughts and emotional experiences about them. These emotional experiences are based on things going on inside me. They do not indicate objective truths about the other person.

When I remember these two things, my downturns seem natural and also naturally limited. The world seems to be a less hostile, frustrating place. My emotional experiences seem to rise easily when I stay away from blame and trust my natural inclination toward love, compassion, and connection.

Where You Should Be

Should.

It’s is a problematic word. It implies that the present could be different from what exists now.

It’s a sensible sentiment, the idea that things should’ve worked out differently, but here is the problem: Things didn’t work out differently. The present could be different only if we could change the past. But -to my knowledge- we can’t. Specific causes lead to specific effects even if we can’t measure or understand them. Every moment is perfectly aligned with the causes that created it.

The present moment can’t be different from what it is, and in the mind, fighting what is with illusions of what should be leads to confusion. The tension caused by this battle is like a trap that limits our possibilities. Yet we constantly should all over ourselves (and others).

The outcome should be different.
You should be different.
I should be someone else.
I should be a better, tougher, stronger version of me.
I should be with someone else.
I should be somewhere else.
I should be at a better place in life.

The desire to should on life is certainly understandable. When it seems like things aren’t going our way, we have a tendency to believe things should be different. It’s a protective mechanism. It helps saves our self-worth. It helps the world seem a little more controllable and fair.

I’d love to tell you there are guarantees in life. There aren’t any.

I’d love to tell you life is fair. It’s not.

I’d love to tell you you’re in control. You aren’t.

The fact is this: Life is not controllable, guaranteed, or fair. The illusion of control exists when you only account for forces you can observe with your limited awareness. The perception of control is like admiring the top level of a house of cards while completely ignoring the bases that support it. This limited admiration ignores the fragile, connected beauty of the entire structure. Every moment of our lives, forces out of our awareness and control influence what we are capable of thinking, feeling, and doing. Like a house of cards, a change in one aspect can influence a change in the entire structure.

The illusion of control is compelling. It seems to make sense. It’s also quite convenient at times. But the illusion creates problems. When we believe in the illusion of control we tend to throw shoulds at everything we see because we see causality in a very limited, constraining way. This has some consistent effects. When things appear to be going against us, the illusion of control leads to confusion, blame, frustration, and eventual despair. When things appear to be going our way, the illusion of control blocks us from the gratitude that naturally flows from understanding the beautiful and miraculous harmony of uncontrollable forces that have aligned to give us what we want.

We desire control because we imagine it helps us feel powerful. To relinquish control can seem scary and uncertain, but in truth, the illusion of control is limiting, confusing, and frustrating. When we reject this illusion to clearly see degrees of influence in the order of the universe, we gain clarity, freedom, and possibility.

We don’t get to change the past, but we can influence how we understand it. A change in perception of the past changes our experience of the present.
We don’t have control over other people and the situations of the world, yet when we understand we have creative influence over our own experiences, we gain incredible freedom. Mind over matter isn’t a power struggle. It’s the way we are built.
We don’t have control over our thoughts, feelings, and actions, yet we have influence over possibilities that far exceed anything we attempt to control within us. When we learn not to fight ourselves, composure, awe, gratitude, wonder, curiosity, joy, and love flow through us.
We don’t get to control other persons’ thoughts, feelings, and actions, yet our influence is far greater than any control we might attempt to impose upon them. Don’t sell short others’ ability to love, admire, and appreciate you and your deeds.
We will never truly understand the order that created the present moment or where the swirling forces are taking us from here, yet we can influence finding reason, meaning, purpose, and connection along whatever path we travel. When we learn to dance with the rhythms of life, we find the miraculous in the common.

Much of the order of the universe works outside our awareness and understanding, but our lack of awareness and understanding doesn’t mean things should be different from what they are. Things are as they should be. Every moment is perfectly aligned with the causes that created it. We may not understand or appreciate it. We need not like it. We may wish things were different and even have regrets. But ultimately, the order of the universe is a good thing because if there is solace in the order of the universe, it is this:

You are where you should be. Here and now is the only place you can be. It’s the only place you’ll ever be, and you are enough to be great where you stand.

Blame Elimination Diet

“Be relentless in pursuit of those goals, especially in the face of obstacles. Along the way, make no excuses and place no blame.”

Hockey Hall of Famer Ray Bourque

I’ve had some interest in a mental challenge of the day. So here is one you can try for a day, a week, or a lifetime: Eliminate blame.

When you catch yourself blaming someone or something for how you are thinking, feeling, or acting, just stop. Let it be.

Why eliminate blame?

We act as if blame is a righteous return of fire against an enemy trying to harm us. But that’s not what blame is. Blame is the brick and mortar we use to wall off our connection to others and the freedom that is ours if we don’t construct our own prisons. Blame leads us down an inaccurate path that strips us of our rightful influence over ourselves and the world around us. Blame primes us to be victims rather than seeking our positions of power.

Please don’t confuse reasons or causes with blame. There are reasons why we experience what we do. Our universe obeys orderly rules even if we don’t always understand them. But the chance of accurately understanding why you are experiencing a particular thought, feeling, or action is next to 0% until you can greatly reduce blame. When you eliminate the noise of blame and open up to greater possibility, more answers to your, “Why?” questions will occur to you. When you eliminate blame, you will gain freedom, possibility, and influence.

A small caution: Eliminating blame will not eliminate pain from your life. Even without blame, you won’t like everything you experience, but without blame your sense of influence and freedom will increase. In turn, this will help limit the frequency, duration, and intensity of your painful experiences.

A couple of thoughts/tips: After you begin to eliminate blame of other people and situations, you may be tempted to blame yourself for your pain. Don’t do it. Continue eliminating blame. Don’t blame yourself either. None of us is perfect. It’s one of the beautiful ways we are connected. Don’t kick your own butt for your imperfections. Imperfect happens and pain results. There’s a reason for it. Blame won’t fix it. It will improve fastest when you simply experience it without blame.

You may not be able to eliminate blame with your current vocabulary. Instead of saying something like, “That made me mad,” which blames an external cause for your anger, try saying something like, “I am mad about that,” which implies an internal experience of anger without blaming an external cause.

That’s it. I hope you enjoy the challenge. I can’t wait to hear how you experienced it, so please post or contact me privately.

I hope you have a great day. Make the plays you can. Cast no blame along the way.

What’s In You Today

What do you have in you today? What can you do, think, or feel today? What is possible for your experience of life today?

Please rest assured, you have enough in you to be great today. I say this not knowing what you intend to accomplish. But no matter how limited your initial thoughts on this topic, please understand my point.

Your capacity to imagine greatness in this moment doesn’t change your capability to manifest it. In other words, the old adage, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right,” is wrong. Dead wrong. It’s not an absolute. Optimists fail and doubters prove themselves wrong on a daily basis. The only thing that hides us from these facts is denial. Why live in the illusion of denial when something more powerful exists? These clear facts exist: We can experience great thoughts, feelings, and actions out of the blue, and others experience the greatness of our thoughts, feelings, and actions without our awareness.

You don’t have the capacity to understand how powerful a little gesture might be to someone else. You simply can’t judge it. You aren’t in their shoes, and you may not be in the right frame of mind to see how powerful any kindness can seem to someone else. Have you ever expressed deep gratitude to someone only to have them shrug off their efforts as no big deal? It didn’t seem like no big deal to you, did it?

Not only that, but the person on the receiving end of your kindness may change her mind about its power down the road of time. How often do we come to understand the impact of someone’s influence on us only after they’ve moved on? Shouldn’t we take time to appreciate those people today? Shouldn’t each of us strive to be one of those people?

Furthermore, you do not have the capacity to judge the impact of your own efforts on yourself without the benefit of passing time. How often do we look back and discover that small seeds sprouted into something enormous? Shouldn’t we recognize the enormous potential of the little things that exist in this moment as it occurs?

Nobody is guaranteed anything. Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you may still be capable of greatness. You may not always manifest it. That’s life. You win some, you lose some. But before rejecting your potential for greatness, allow me to ask: Who are you to judge your capacity for greatness before giving it a shot?

Trust what’s in you today. It’s enough.

Unseen Anchors

Hebrews 6:19. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul….

Hope is an anchor for the soul. We’ve heard this over and over the last month. It seems to be one of the most reassuring ideas we can entertain. Yet why, at times, why does it seem like hope’s anchor is bludgeoning us over the head?

Don’t we all do it? Don’t we hope for a bigger paycheck, a smaller tumor, an easier path through life, more sunshine and less rain, fewer red lights and less traffic? It seems no matter how big or small, hope let’s us down from time to time. The bigger the hope, the bigger the letdown. It’s almost as if life would be easier if we simply abandoned hope.

And yet, to abandon hope would be to misunderstand the analogy. Hope is useful anchor. It’s not always a useful expectation. Hope isn’t an outcome. It’s a force.

Consider an anchor on a boat. It can be useful to inspect an anchor from time to time and admire it’s beauty or functionality. But when we are inspecting the anchor, it is not in use. And this is where the analogy gains its true power. An anchor at use is unseen. It does its work, keeping us grounded where we want to be, from beneath the rolling surface of stormy waters.

Hope as an anchor keeps us firmly planted where we want to be while allowing us to go about our daily work dealing with the turmoil in front of us. It’s wise to occasionally inspect an anchor, but we need not keep our eye on the anchor to feel its force and effects. Indeed, in order to deal with more pressing matters raging against us, at times we need to toss the anchor overboard into the depths and trust that it will do its job even when we lose sight of it.

When dealing with life, hope may be the last thing on your mind. Yet as long as you have occasionally inspected the anchor of hope, making adjustments and repairs as needed, you can trust it to do its job. From somewhere beyond your vision, you will be able to feel the pull of a strong and steady anchor as it works its purpose, firmly rooting your vessel, keeping you from drifting too far away from your intended center.

Hope is an anchor, and the true strength of an anchor isn’t in what you see. It’s in what you feel.

Our best to you and yours. May be be anchored with hope, even when your sight line is adrift.

Beautiful, Strong, & Important

Our great friend Ben sent us the posted photo of the cross and anchors. Upon receiving it, Celeste and Ben exchanged these texts:

Celeste: They are beautiful. They look strong and important.

Ben: Just like you.

This is the first official week of treatment for Celeste’s pancreatic cancer, although I like to think we started fighting at least a month ago. With the diagnosis and onset of treatment we have experienced an incredible outpouring of support from family, friends, acquaintances, and even strangers. I want to share two of those stories from late Tuesday (8/8/17) and tie them into some general thoughts on life.

The first is written above. Our great friend Ben sent us the photo above, and Celeste and Ben exchanged those texts.

The second was a comment from our great friend Carrie, who accompanied us to Celeste’s first chemotherapy treatment.

As we were driving home, Carrie said, “Thank you for including me tonight. I hope this doesn’t sound weird, but I enjoyed it. I consider it a great honor.”

It’s not weird it all. I feel exactly the same way, and I’m glad I do.

Think about the sentiment explained in those two anecdotes. Think about the possible power it holds for those who understand.

“You are beautiful, strong, and important. It’s an honor to serve you. Thank you for letting me do so.”

How awesome would it be to tell that to our teammates, those special family and friends that mean so much to us?

“You are beautiful, strong, and important. It’s an honor to serve you. Thank you for letting me do so.”

Can you imagine expanding your definition of teammate to strangers in your community, or possibly even a stranger who has very little in common with you other than the fact that we all inhabit this earth as humans today? Could you say it? What might it mean to you? What might they do with the understanding of how you feel?

“You are beautiful, strong, and important. It’s an honor to serve you. Thank you for letting me do so.”

Please consider this my word to you, and you can book it as my bond. I don’t care what you’ve done in the past or what mistakes you are going to make.

“You are beautiful, strong, and important. It’s an honor to serve you. Thank you for letting me do so.”

So, my friends, if I can serve you, let me know how. Tweet it (@woodjared and @1sideline). Facebook message me. Text. Call. Write in the comments below.

If you don’t need anything, how about you do something for someone else? Do something for a friend, family member, coworker, teammate. Do something for a friend of a friend. Do something for a stranger. Make a play. Do what you can.

Let’s do this people. Let’s move mountains. Let’s build a team. Get your butt in action. If you want to be humble and quiet, that’s fine. But if you’ve got something to say or do, I’d love to see you light up social media today with #woodswarriors. After all, you are beautiful, strong, and important. Let your light shine.

Last Play

Memento mori.

-Latin phrase meaning, “Remember, you will die.”

Carpe diem.

-Latin phrase meaning, “Seize the day.”

To start my post, I’d like to thank everyone for surviving the last two weeks, so that I wasn’t tempted to write another eulogy-type piece this week. But I’ve been thinking about loss and finality. Per usual, my mind turned to athletics and the idea of the last play, the last repetition we take as athletes.

It’s incredible to watch players who play ever play as if it is their last. No matter how physically talented they are, they are overachievers. Unlike other players who throttle back at times, worry about their next breath, save their energy reserves, and occasional give up on winning the game, players who play every play as if it were their last almost always seem to find that extra gear.

They never seem to worry about their next breath, and yet it always comes. They never seem to spare an ounce of energy, and yet there’s always more when they need it. They never seem to surrender, and yet sometimes the other team gets the best of them. They always manage to play and practice with an intensity that suggests they believe this current play could be their last.

They play and practice with minimal regrets. They certainly may experience disappointment, but for the rest of their days, regret is minimal because they left nothing in the tank. They spent it all on the field or in the arena.

Looking back at films of my old teams, we played hard. We overachieved. We flew to the ball, yet we certainly weren’t perfect. Personally, I didn’t take many plays off, if any, but I definitely didn’t play every play as if it were my last. I should have. I would have been a better player if I did.

Then again, there was my senior season at Albion. Before then, I always assumed there would be other plays. I played pretty hard. I got after it. But looking back on it, I often had another gear to give, and I never realized it until I finally hit that higher gear in my senior season, the season I finally accepted the fact that any play could be my last. On any play, I could have suffered a season ending injury. Because I wasn’t moving on to another level of football, a play ending my season would also have ended my career.

So in my senior year at Albion, 7 years into varsity football, I finally began to understand that any play could be my last. It changed how I played. I unleashed a new intensity in drills. I enjoyed every moment of every rep. I did more than enjoy the pain, I embraced and savored it. Every rep was a love affair with football. Every sprint was a celebration of speed. I’d finally begun to play every play as if it were my last. It was the most enjoyable season of my playing days, and it was probably my best. I still miss it. I dream of it. My heart breaks that I can’t play another last play.

That’s the thing about sports and life. We never really know what we had until it ends (or nears an end). Part of the beauty in life is getting lost in those moments before the last play is over.

Sports are just part of a bigger life. Someday, the last play, last rep, last day, last breath will come for each of us. This is the essence of the Latin phrase memento mori. Remember, you will die. When the last play arrives, if you have done things right often enough and given a great effort, you will leave minimal regrets.

But to do so, you may need to seize each moment as it arrives. Makes plays in the moment you have. This is the essence of the Latin phrase carpe diem. Seize the opportunity. Seize the day. It is the antidote to regret.

May we all play every play as if it’s our last.

Best wishes.

-JW

Other favorite quotes on last play:

“Even in camp, every play’s a big play. With the Steelers you learn to play every play like it’s your last.”

-Antonio Brown, Pittsburgh Steelers

“Now, you guys all understand what last play means? Last play. You play every play as if it was the last play you will ever play. And if we don’t play with emotion, if we don’t play the last play on every play, it will be. There won’t be a next week. Every play tonight, you play….you think about what that means. You think about what it means to be on your last play! This is my last play of football ever! My last play! How do I want it to be? How do I want to be remembered? My last play! Every play.”

-Coach Ed Burke, Torrey Pines High School, San Diego, CA

Filling Need with Deed

I strive to write clearly, but with the topics I write about, I am sure I fail sometimes. One ridiculously simple point that isn’t always clear: The title of my blog, makingtheplay.com. What does it mean to make plays? What is a play anyway? Hopefully this post will clear that up a bit.

I don’t feel the need to define play strictly. I believe you know the plays of your life when you encounter them. Sometimes they are explicit, such as picking off a pass in football or picking up a check in a restaurant. Other times they are less clear, such as openly honoring someone’s right to disagree or silently changing your experience of a situation by having an epiphany about it.

The importance of a play varies from person to person, and it varies from moment to moment for each individual. I like to think they all have unlimited potential. No play is too big or too small to be worthy of your effort.

Every moment of our lives, opportunities to make plays are available. We make some. We miss some. We move on in the present moment with new plays available for the making.

This past week, three playmakers in my family died. I wrote about my Uncle Jake last week (you can read that article by clicking to the link here It’s Been Fun). This week I want to write about Ron Block and my Aunt Susan Klaus Hoffman. You may or may not know them, but both made plays that were important to me. By discussing them, I hope to shed light on what it means to make a play.

Truth be told, Ron Block wasn’t part of my family. Not by blood at least. But I loved him, and he treated me like family. His entire family treated mine with kindness, so he and the Blocks are family to me.

As a single parent, my mom did her best, and her best was incredible. But she was human (although I think many would consider my mom Saint Kate with the love she has for the world), and after playing the roles of mother, father, and breadwinner, she didn’t always have time left to figure out how to take care of what she wanted for me. That’s where Ron and the Block family often stepped in.

My childhood memories are filled with times I spent with the Blocks. They drove me to countless games and events. As I write this, I have visions from their back of their minivan flooding my head (to be clear, there was a new minivan every year, and I hope more than a few of you are laughing your butts off at the thought of one of Dee’s new minivans parked next to Ron’s old S-10, both immaculately cleaned by Ron’s compulsive hand). Ron was typically at the wheel, unless of course we had been to the beach where Ron had imbibed plenty of fun (and more than a few Black Labels), in which case Dee drove back home. Anyone who knows Ron will have plenty of memories of Ron smiling and laughing as if the point of life was simply to smile and laugh, which very well might be the point of life. The man could celebrate, and he never needed much of a reason.

Once when Ron and I were celebrating at a graduation party, we had a conversation about my personality. I was a pretty serious kid at times (okay, that’s the understatement of the year, quit laughing people), and Ron noted that as I entered my early 20s, I was starting to loosen up a bit and have a little fun. I like to think I’m still on that path, and I like to think I learned some of it from him.

One particular memory of Ron has been popping up in my mind for years. One year Ryan and I had to make Pinewood Derby cars for Cub Scouts. Ron knew mom and I couldn’t handle it on our own. He was good with tools and had a workshop in his basement. So he took Ryan and I, and we designed, drilled, weighted, cut, and finished our cars in the workshop. Unlike so many parents today, Ron didn’t interfere with my design, weighting, or aerodynamics. He let me create and build my own car. He simply made sure I was safe with the tools. It was the perfect level of guidance.

I am pretty sure the design of the car was mediocre and finished with mediocre results, but today the process means much more to me than any result ever could. Ron thought about me and cared enough to step up and make a play. In my opinion, it’s one of the most beautiful things life has to offer: Someone sees a need and fills it with deed. It’s like a dovetail joint that brings together the spiritual with the physical, the intangible with the tangible. It’s common, yet when it’s experienced with great awareness, it seems miraculous. It’s the essence of making a play.

When Ron made plays for me, Dee, Rhondi, Ryan, and Darren should get credit for their assists (and they made their own plays for me too). They shared their husband and father with me, and that’s worth more than a small mention. Sometimes we can’t make plays without assists from others.

That’s where my Aunt Sue comes in. She certainly made her own plays in life, but she also made assists by allowing my Uncle Hank to be another father figure in my life. She and my cousins, Kyle and Tim, shared selflessly and included me in their lives in so many ways.

Aunt Sue also shared her family of origin with me. I have great memories of spending time with her brothers, sisters, and parents, Harold and Ruth Klaus. One of my earliest memories is of her marriage to my uncle at their family farm in Harbor Beach. Another is smelt dipping with Uncle, Harold, and her brother Tim. We fished for hours, then used scissors to gut the fish for what seemed like hours more, then fried and ate them. Talk about filling a need with a deed. It was a perfect adventure for a young boy.

When her brother Tim was a teen, he and Uncle Hank put up a basketball hoop that provided hundreds of hours of fun for me, and I’ll never forget fishing on Sanford Lake with her sisters Jackie and Linda. These were times they used their skills to make plays my mom couldn’t make. That is not a knock on my mom. It’s a nod to their thoughtful efforts to make the plays my mom simply couldn’t. It was filling a need with a deed.

Given all the memories of my aunt from my youth, perhaps it’s a bit ironic that one of my lasting memories of her will be her late-life battle with MS. Truth be told, it wasn’t necessarily the battle that impressed me; It was the grace with which she accepted her disease.

Early on in the course of the disease, she fought through pain and debilitated motion to continue making plays in life. She constantly sought to make contributions to her communities. When she wasn’t teaching a class of her own, she was working as an assistant, tutor, or volunteer. She was always active making plays in her community through the schools, churches, and other organizations. She lived to make plays that helped enrich others.

I am sure she had moments of frustration, but she rarely showed it when I was around. On the contrary, she often seemed to be at peace with her frailty. It was as if she understood: This is my path. It’s the only one I can travel, and I recognize that I am the one who must travel it.

It often seemed as if her greatest strength, her grace, was revealed through her greatest weakness, the weakness that eventually took her life. With her grace, my aunt displayed one of the key principles of what makingtheplay.com is all about. The situations of our lives do not dictate our experiences of them. They do not control us. We have creative power to construct our own experience and meaning of life. We rise above situations when we understand that our experience of life resides in our own awareness. Ultimately, perhaps life becomes what we can make of it. No situation is too big or too small. Every play has unlimited potential, and you may never truly understand the value another person attributes to your play.

Our biological frailty has taken two great ones this week, Ron Block and Sue Hoffman. Even though they are gone from the world, their spirit will surely live on in those who knew them. For me, I hope to remember them by making plays like they made for me. I hope to be able to see needs and fill them with deeds. I hope to understand life is what I make of it. And as I progress toward my own inevitable frailty, I hope to show grace and acceptance of what I can no longer influence.

If you’ve read this far, I thank you. Ron and Sue were certainly worthy of your time. Whether you know them or not, I have a humble ask. Make a play. Fill a need with a deed. Place Ron or Sue or someone else you know in mind, someone who made plays for you and has now passed. Grab your favorite beverage, and give a toast to them and the plays they made.

Prost. Cheers to Ron, Sue, and you and yours. May you make plays until the day you can’t, and when you pass, may your plays live on in the memories of your loved ones.