I didn’t sleep much last night. Because every time I rolled over, I replayed Haliburton’s pull-up jumpshot hovering in the air for what seemed like a blue-zone lifespan. Again and again, I watched the basketball float and spin and descend, then kiss gently off the rim and through the net. Pacers win. Thunder lose. I agonize. (I also owe my neighbor from Indiana a six pack.)
I’ve dedicated much of the past twelve hours to figuring out how we won’t lose again. Better transition defense. Better late-game ball movement. More intentionality. Shorter rotations. But the truth is this: I have no idea if we’ll win the next game. Or The Finals.
Either we will or we won’t.
For most of my life, I refused to lose because losing was obliteration. Winning was vindication. Naturally, I pursued winning to ensure psychic survival. But sometimes, I got outplayed. Sometimes, I choked. Sometimes, I just kinda sucked. Did that mean I was a loser? A choker? A failure?
Grace has been one of the greatest gifts of getting older, and as I’ve come to humbly accept—after many losses—I’ve usually just needed more experience. Like my Thunder last night, I wasn’t ready for the moment. Yet.
Maybe the Thunder will win The Finals. Or maybe they’ll lose. But if they do win, it won’t be because they “refused to lose”. It’ll be because they surrendered themselves to the game and gave themselves permission to learn, and in the process, discovered the reason why we play the game at all.
To livin’ a life we love,
Ryan Fightmaster, MD
