Lessons from Football

In life, we have a lot of downtime.  We all know this--in some form--in the back of our minds.  Our lives are so full of stuff, but at the end of the day, most of it doesn't really matter.  But we know that some of it does matter.

A while back during the NFL playoff season, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal that broke down the broadcast by, well, the minute and found that during the course of the television broadcast of the game, very little football is actually being played.  Indeed, in the whole of a 3+ hour broadcast, the ball is in play for an average of 11 minutes.  I thought this was interesting, but not really surprising.
Our lives are also the products of, really, very few choices that we have made.  For me, many of these choices were a result of my poor reactions to certain circumstances.  But all of us are in some ways living out lives that only a handful of choices have created.

Some lessons from football:

Fundamentally, I have always thought of football as a modern war game.  Indeed, there are battle plans drawn up, and every player on the field is getting drilled.  In life, we are better off when we decide proactively and plan out the future we will live.  We are going to get beat down, and knowing that, we can better prepare ourselves.

Football is essentially a chess match.  There is back and forth, and one can't always be proactive.  Our choices in life must be made wisely when we are having to react.  Can we think on our feet and end up in a place of safety when the opportunities arise?  (Here, I also specifically think of the few times we are offered the Gospel life-line...)

Football is a strenuous activity.  Players need to literally catch their breath.  In life, we need to review.  Our choices and reactions cause a great deal of stress that maybe we aren't fully aware of.  We really need down time and if we don't get it, we wear out (and look like it).

Each game is a story in itself.  There is more than just the play of the ball, and there is more than the battle plan.  Life is also much richer than the things we have done.  Can we spot patterns and adjust our thinking?  Also, we are people that love, that prefer, that feel.  We have unique situations that no one can ever really know, so when we judge others, isn't this sort of hypocritical?

Sometimes,  the play just gets lucky.  Something happens to go right because the other team was ill-prepared or lined up for a different play option.  Other times, one player is all it takes for good or bad.  Well, in life, I believe that there are times and circumstances that provide better outcomes than they 'ought' to have, simply because of timing.  This is a mysterious aspect to me; I have wondered about this for a long time.  Some call it coincidence, but sometime around a decade ago I stopped believing in coincidences.