For those unacquainted, field position is a football thing. The idea is to dictate where the ball is located on the field. If you can keep the other team further from your endzone, they won’t score as many points. And if they don’t score points, you usually win. Ask Iowa, they make football scores look like baseball scores and they won 10 games this year. The concept is simple and powerful.
But to maintain good field position, it means you must punt. You must be humble, admitting your offense doesn’t have the juice to beat their defense. Right now. It means trusting in the flow of the game, perceiving reality accurately, and taking what the other team gives you. It’s patience. Because in sports, and in life, impermanence reigns. The window of opportunity always opens… if you’re still in the game.
The other team had my number this week. It’s been difficult to stay in the game. I caught a case of bronchitis. Ran a few fevers. Hacked up a lung or two. And in the face of this blitz, I failed to demonstrate the patience necessary to maintain good field position. I threw an interception (after developing a cough, I worked all day in our 40-degree basement on furniture). I fumbled the ball (in a moment where my fever broke, and I could have done a necessary task for my businesses, I watched four consecutive episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia). Yet, at other times, I took the four-yard dive on first down (and got an article out). I hit the checkdown slant to convert a third down (and planned investments into our furniture business).
So, the week wasn’t all bad. I learned a lot about my opponent and myself. I stayed alive in the game of my life. And sure enough, at the hands of impermanence, that window that always opens… opened this morning, as I started to feel better.
Sometimes, the best we can do is to stay in the game, punt the ball, take the check down, maintain field position, and wait. We cannot afford to take ourselves out of games due to our impatience. If Iowa can do it, we can do it too.
To living a life we love,
Ryan Fightmaster, MD
