“You find out life’s this game of inches, so is football. Because in either game – life or football – the margin for error is so small. I mean, one half a step too late or too early and you don’t quite make it. One half second too slow, too fast and you don’t quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They’re in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team we fight for that inch. On this team we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when add up all those inches, that’s gonna make the … difference between winning and losing! Between living and dying!”—Tony D’Amato, Any Given Sunday
Is life supposed to be a battle? Can the best we expect in life is to keep clawing our way—inches at a time—until we die? If it is, “shoot me now ‘cause life ain’t worth livin’” (Dennis Miller).
Sure, life will have its moments of difficulty (great and small). It will have its ups and downs. We will have our period of “inches”. But, this is not the life we are intended to have—at least this is not the approach to life we are supposed to have.
We can look at life two ways. We can look at it as a life and death battle—a life of winners and losers—or we can look at life as the opportunity it is. Life is all about growing—not struggling to survive.
Al Pacino’s character (Tony D’Amato) in Any Given Sunday gives an impassioned speech, and it makes for a great motivational moment, but I am not buying it. This is not how I want to live my life.
As my readers know, I enjoy the life lessons of wrestling. One favorite lesson reminds us that “in wrestling there are no losers, only winners and learners” (Unknown). Indeed, such is life.
We can embrace that life is to be a struggle—a battle for survival (Spoiler alert: we die in the end), or we can celebrate that life is a blessed opportunity that is to be received with gratitude. This is the difference, my friend, Andy Lausier, has taught me, between having to do something and getting to do something. A life that is viewed as clawing “with our fingernails for that inch” is my interpretation of hell. Living a life filled with opportunity and growth, rather, is a bit of heaven on earth.
Difference between heaven and hell is a fine line. Likewise, the line between battle and opportunity is a matter of perception. We can choose to view life as a battle to the death or as a wrestling match in which, as Nietzsche postulated, “that which does not kill me makes me stronger.” In hell, one suffers. In heaven, all is received with gratitude. The choice is ours.
Carpe momento!
Image: Any Given Sunday