Saturday, August 8, 2009

Perspective

When I was in college, my best friend Tom was a Resident Assistant I had known since high school. We spent many a night hanging out in his oversized room of authority keeping on eye on the people on the floor with Tom playing guitar (think Guns and Roses, not James Taylor) and me making up lyrics on the spot - usually liberally sprinkled with expletives rhyming with luck, hit, and pitch. But who was keeping track?

Well, I used to play volleyball and he was athletically inclined, so I convinced him to play in a couple of 2-on-2 tournaments with me. Now, I'm 6' 2" and he was a generous 5' 8"-ish. We'd sign up and go to the court to play across from two trees of men, say 6' 6" to 6' 9". As you could imagine, we'd get our asses kicked!

Through it all though, Tom and I would be laughing so hard it hurt. He'd dive for a ball, somersault and karate kick it over the net - and we'd laugh. I'd duck out of the way of a missile then prance after the ball like a gazelle - and we'd laugh. He'd run up to the net to try a block and cry "whose your daddy?" as the ball was easily spiked over his head - and we'd laugh.

Because we had a mantra - perspective. Here these trees were crushing us and were soooooo serious, seemingly having no fun. We were getting crushed and having a great time. Keep it all in perspective my friends!