Can or Can't

"Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."
-John Wooden

I am not a soccer player.  I'm a runner... yet I play in indoor soccer matches with my friends.

Today, I had one of the best games of the season.  We had a great lead, but they caught up in the end and were up 11-9, with 1:30 left in the game.  One of my team members managed to get a shot in, making the score 11-10 with only 24 seconds left in a game.  In that last 24 seconds, we pushed hard, and an opportunity arose, Nathan passed a perfect ball to Nick, who dribbled it into the penalty area, and just as the goalie  rushed towards him, I sped in from the other side and he passed the ball right to me, and before the final second ticked, I kicked the ball in, tying up the game 11-11.  In that 50 minute game, I made 5 goals, and it was one of the best games I have had.

Indoor soccer has been really fun for me.  I'm still learning the techniques and tactics of how indoor soccer works, and it's been a long process.  However, I choose not to focus on my inability to understand techniques and tactics.  I choose to focus on what I can do: on my running, my ability on reading the player's movement, and especially on doing my best and not giving up.

Everyone has things that they can do, and things that they can't do, and when life throws things at us, we need to make a decision.  Do we focus on the few things we can't do about it that we wish we could?  Or do we focus on the things that we CAN do about it?  Let our knowledge of what we can't do help us grow and not hinder us in our steps towards our goals.  Let the things we can do push us forward and deal with whatever life throws at us.  Remember: Knowing what we cannot do is just as important as knowing what we can do.

In the last few seconds of the game, we worked together as a team, focusing on the things we could do, and took steps to make it happen.  What we couldn't do did not stop us because we did what we could do.  We took charge of our abilities and when combining our talents and abilities, we were able to make that last goal, tying up the game.  Our victory didn't come out on the score board.  Our victory was when we overcame the obstacle that was before us.