Run it Back!

Me: “Run it back!”
Him: “You want to switch the teams up a little?”
Me: “Run it back!” (this time throwing, the ball at–um, I mean toward–him)

Anyone who is a competitor, and we all have a little bit of that in us, can relate to that scenario.  You’ve just been whooped.  And at something about which you care at least a little bit (why else would you be playing the game?).  And rather than go home, or sit on the sidelines, or worse yet, take the easy way out and change your team, you want nothing more than to play again.  You want to start over, hit sport’s equivalent of a reset button.  You want to, as they say on the hoop courts, “run it back”.  

And the beauty of sports is that, even if you lose again, even if you lose AGAIN, it’s just one day.  You always have tomorrow to come back and compete again.  I had a coach that used to tell us after a particularly poor loss that no matter how bad you get beat by, it’s still only one loss.  Whether you lose by 5 or 25, at the end of the day, it’s still only one loss.

I use that same philosophy in life.  Yesterday was a perfect example.  I had a pretty bad–no it was bad–day.  We’ve all had them, right?  RIGHT? (Don’t pretend I’m the only one.)  I got up tired.  I yelled at my kids because I was making us late for school.  My back hurt from an overambitious workout I’d put my boot-campers through the previous day.  I was grouchy at work and everything that could possibly bother me, did bother me.  And after a long day of getting ready for a big meeting, I went home late.  I was in a funk the whole night, too, snapping at my wife (bless her heart for understanding and not taking a frying pan to my skull like they do in the cartoons) and being despondent with my children (thank goodness they love Daddy anyway).

Maybe it was the fact that it was raining outside.  Or that I hadn’t gotten much sleep over the previous couple of days.  Or that I felt unprepared for our meeting or overwhelmed with my work and family responsibilities.  Whatever the reason, I “lost” yesterday.  Bad.  If I had to guess–I turned the virtual scoreboard off at about noon– the final score was: Life 73, Bobby 6!

But alas a new day is here.  To my utter surprise, the sun did rise this morning.  Life, contrary to what my body language portrayed yesterday, is NOT over.  And no matter what the score was–heck, it could have been 7-6–it was still just one loss.  So I got out of my bed.  Drank my 5-Hour Energy and hopped in the shower.  I put on a suit and tie and headed to work.  And all the way I looked around and every chance I got, told Life…..

“Run it Back!”