In my article last month I talked about the importance of gratitude. One of the things that I am grateful for is the life experiences that I have had playing football. It is fun to talk about successes and the positive experiences, and I appreciate those wonderful happy memories. More importantly, for me and my path in life, is to reflect on the times that things didn’t go as well as I would have liked. The times when things were rough, like getting hurt and not feeling well and having to fight through pain. Or when I experienced a season ending injury and had to rehabilitate and focus on getting well again while others were able to fill my role and I could only watch.
The reality is, life doesn’t always go the way we would like or plan for it to happen. Being faced with adversity and difficult situations is unfortunately very much a part of life. It is important to learn to work through those situations and understand that adversity will always be a part of our life. Learning to accept that adversity happens, and then being hopeful and having a positive attitude for the long-term that things will get better. It is easy to feel sorry for yourself and think that you are the only one that bad things happen to. But, everyone deals with adversity. It is easy to look at someone and think that they have everything going their way, and how it would be better if we were in their shoes. That may be the case on a given day, but the truth of the matter is, they have adversity in their life as well. Sometimes we may not know or realize that, and it makes it easy to think that the grass is greener on their side of the fence. The reality is that we all deal with adversity at times in our life.
How we handle adversity is what is important. It doesn’t mean we have to put a smile on our face and just accept things that happen to us. It does mean that we need to reflect on the situation for what it is, and look at the things we do have control of. Having a positive attitude and hope that there are things you can do to improve the situation in the future is an important step to addressing adversity. Even if we put our heart and soul into something, there is always the chance that we might F.A.I.L. (First Attempt In Learning). Getting things right often takes practice and multiple failures.
In my previously mentioned adversity, I learned that being injured was very a much a part of the game of football, and to think that I was going to be able to play my entire career without that happening is pretty unrealistic. What I was going to do when I was done playing, needed to be a focus, because at some point it was going to be a reality. I am so happy that I decided to go back to school and finish my degree after I had a season ending injury, because it ultimately led to my career here at Triton. I have found Triton Public Schools to be an amazing place, and a big part of that journey to get here started when I got injured and needed to look at how I was going to deal with it. Sure it would be neat to finish the story with…”I healed up and lived happily ever after playing football”, but the reality is that I was able to finish my degree and find something even better!
Please reach out to me with any questions that you may have regarding our school district. You can email me at schlich@triton.k12.mn.us or you can call me at 507-418-7530 to reach me at the district office. I would be happy to set up a time to meet with you or your organization. Communication is an important aspect of my job responsibility, and I welcome the opportunity to gain experience from your perspective. GO COBRAS!
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