I was never really very good at sports. Don\u2019t get me wrong \u2013 I played! Thank Mom that my older brothers HAD to take me along! And I even caught the occasional long pass or made the improbable hook shot, but I was never struck by my brilliance at any given sport. I did \u201cletter\u201d in Tennis the first two years that they had a team\u2026.<\/p>\n
I played right field in baseball and couldn\u2019t really figure out how to hit a curve ball much less throw one.<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t too bad at dodge ball, but I made sort of a big target which might have offset any gains made by my throwing arm and accuracy.<\/p>\n
Kickball! Not as tough as baseball! And I could run, sort of. My knees weren\u2019t exactly done growing together as I grew up, so the family doctor didn\u2019t recommend that my parents let me play any team sports.<\/p>\n
But I was tall and did get to play on the 8th<\/sup> grade basketball team!<\/p>\n Mark was team captain. He was a good player. Man he could jump! But he also liked to shoot from way out. That\u2019s how I broke my thumb! We were warming up before the championship game and Mark took a wild shot from way out just as I was going in for a layup from the opposite side. I found out later that I had fractured my thumb.<\/p>\n That\u2019s how I found myself alone on the playground shooting baskets left-handed. That\u2019s when Allen and I became friends. He came up and shot baskets with me and didn\u2019t mind that I missed a lot. He wasn\u2019t very good at sports, either. But he did have a new bike! A Huffy two-speed. One day he came up riding his bike and he had just gotten a new rear-view mirror mounted on the handlebars. He ahd saved up money from his paper route to buy it. It was then that Mark came up behind us.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s so great about that?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n It was a turning point for me. I could\u2019ve defended my new friend against the rudeness but instead I piped up with, \u201cYeah, is that so you can see when you eat your boogers?\u201d<\/p>\n Yup. The lesson I learned right then is that I DO make a difference. The words I say make a difference. What I do makes a difference in the direction that the world takes. I met Allen later at a class reunion. He had married one of the cheerleaders from our high school and had a happy family. I still think he might have looked at me a little reservedly, but that might have just been me.<\/p>\n What I hold onto makes a difference.<\/p>\n Did I mention I wasn\u2019t great at sports? My knees were still growing in high school, too. But I played in every football game all four years \u2013 in the marching band! I played trombone and was typically in the front row. I played my heart out! I swayed my trombone and became a leader \u2013 1st<\/sup> chair in my Junior year. Lots of others followed my lead when marching. How I played made a difference.<\/p>\n What I slowly realized \u2013 I am still realizing it today \u2013 is that what I say and what I do makes a difference in this world \u2013 to me.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not saying \u201cit\u2019s all about me.\u201d But it is, sort of. I am the only one that I have any control over and that is pretty loose control at that!<\/p>\n I certainly don\u2019t have complete control over where I end up in life \u2013 there are so many times I ask myself \u201cHow did I get here?\u201d I can\u2019t really trace the steps that brought me to each place in my life \u2013 I can tell a story of it, but it is still just a story. So I find myself in places and realize that what I say and how I act makes a difference!<\/p>\n If I am in a laughing mood, the day seems to feel lighter! If I am in a reflective mood, the day seems a bit reflective. Either way is good. I just notice how it most often reflects how I am holding myself.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t really have control of my life, but I can make choices about how I feel.<\/p>\n So you guys find yourselves on a football team in a small town. You didn\u2019t really have a choice in how you got here \u2013 your parents moved here or worked here, or whatever. Some of you may not have made a conscious choice to be on this team, but here you are.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what I have to say to you \u2013 you make a difference! What you say makes a difference. Do you cheer each other on, or moan about the day or how hard practice is? How you decide to feel makes a difference. Can you feel happy when it\u2019s too hot or too cold or your leg hurts? You can choose how you feel in life. You can choose to make a difference in you! And that is all the difference in the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was never really very good at sports. Don\u2019t get me wrong \u2013 I played! Thank Mom that my older brothers HAD to take me along! And I even caught the occasional long pass or made the improbable hook shot, but I was never struck by my brilliance at any given sport. I did \u201cletter\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parenting","category-toastmasters","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drivingprinciples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drivingprinciples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drivingprinciples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drivingprinciples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drivingprinciples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=92"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.drivingprinciples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97,"href":"https:\/\/www.drivingprinciples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions\/97"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drivingprinciples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=92"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drivingprinciples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=92"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drivingprinciples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=92"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}