Monday, April 7, 2014

Self Referral

Last week my grandson was playing in a junior high school basketball game.  His team was pretty talented and won many of their games but this game was the final tournament of the year.  His team did not score a point in the first half which was so difficult for the kids but no matter what they did they couldn't get the ball to go into the basket.
 
After the half, down 26 points, they came out and one of the team members shot a free throw and made it. The fans in the crowd went crazy and the team energized and started playing better. It was surreal to them that they had not scored in the first half so they decided among themselves to let go and have fun.  They probably didn't have a chance to win the game anyway.

At this point they let go of all expectations and started playing for fun.  Whenever one made a basket they alll jumped up and high-fived them and if they missed they did the same.  All of a sudden this team started playing as if they were out in their neighborhood and came within 8 points of winning the game.   They had such a good time.

The lesson as we looked back at the night was that when the boys started living in the present moment and just enjoyed themselves their shots improved and they were able to play well.  What a wonderful lesson for the boys that a game that started off so badly could turn out to be their favorite game of all.  We can all learn from this and realize that we are not defined by what others think but are defined by what we know to be true about ourselves.

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