Life is not a spectator sport. If you’re going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you’re wasting your life.
American baseball player and sportscaster, Jackie Robinson, was born on this day in 1919 (died 1972)
Robinson was the first African American player to play major league baseball. He joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 and was one of the game’s most talented players. Robinson was also an advocate for civil rights.
His story is told in the 2013 film 42. If you’ve not seen it, you should. Not only does Chadwick Boseman give an amazing performance as Robinson, but Harrison Ford’s portrayal of Branch Rickey may be one of his finest.
The Write Side Shop (click the pic)
Robinson got in the game.
That’s what life is all about. Like Robinson said, it’s not a spectator sport.
We can’t just sit on the sidelines and not participate.
Robinson faced challenges of which most of us have no understanding.
He could have quit. He could have given up.
But he didn’t and he changed professional baseball.
While our challenges may be of a different nature, we all have things we’re dealing with.
You have your list. I have mine.
Sometimes the list is just things we have to do.
Sometimes the thought of the list makes us just want to pull the the covers back over our heads.
I mean, the monsters can’t get us if we’re under the covers, right?
Not so much.
Look, life is great, it really is. We have to embrace it and be thankful for all of the wonderful things that it offers.
I am thankful for family and friends, a house that needs repairs, a job that drives me nuts sometimes but provides a decent income, for my church and my faith, for theater and music and art…and much, much more.
That’s the part of the game that I love.
But let’s not pretend there’s not a lot of life that can be a royal pain in the ass.
You have your list. I have mine.
And, in full honesty, let’s admit that sometimes the list of things for which we’re thankful overlaps with the things that are a pain.
I’m sitting here writing this having just reviewed where I want to be and things I want to accomplish. There’s a lot that stands between me and those goals.
I can choose to sit and whine as they all parade by and I get nowhere.
Or I can get off that painful ass and do something about it.
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I am thankful for family and friends, a house that needs repairs, a job that drives me nuts sometimes but provides a decent income, for my church and my faith, for theater and music and art…and much, much more.
