Next week will be the last post until January, FYI. Lots to do in the meantime!
Last night I caught the last part of the 2004 movie Miracle on TV. It’s my all-time favorite sports movie, but it’s also probably in my top 10 movies ever. I cannot get through it without getting a little teary. Really.
If nothing else gets me, and there’s plenty that can, the “Do you believe in miracles? YES!” game-call always does it. The rawness of that emotion…well, there’s a good reason they used the original call from the live broadcast rather than getting Al Michaels to redo that line.
The Miracle on Ice was a hockey game, fundamentally, but it was such a moment in world history, too. And it was the proof that hard work and trust can take you farther than anyone will ever expect if you never, never give up. The entire world was against them, but those twenty young men chose to believe in what Herb Brooks told them — that they could stand against everyone and win. And Herb Brooks believed because he saw more than talent or greatness in those boys. He saw trust. He saw dedication. And he saw courage.
Herb Brooks changed the way the USA looked at hockey, and the way it is played to this day in this country. He did it by looking deeply into the game and its players, and finding more than others had seen. He saw that you can’t win games by putting 20 “best” players on the ice; you have to win by putting the right 20 players on the ice. Not 20 players who play perfect games individually, but 20 players who play one perfect game together.
He expressed himself in a very unique way sometimes, and his Brooksisms were legendary among the kids he coached. For years, I used to have some of them written on a note at my desk. The note got lost in an office move, but rewatching the movie brought them back. They’re not always kind, but they are always invigorating.
“You don’t have enough talent to win on talent alone.”
“You can’t be common, the common man goes nowhere; you have to be uncommon.”
“Boys, I’m asking you to go to the well again.”
“The important thing is that those twenty boys know in twenty years, they didn’t leave anything on the table. They played their hearts out. That’s the important thing.”
(This last was from the movie, not an actual Brooksism.)
As I’m looking ahead to 2019, there are a lot of unknowns. I don’t know what the world will look like in a year. I don’t know if I will be able to get an agent and publish a book, or if I’ll put it in a drawer and try again with something else. I don’t know what other seismic events will shake my emotional landscape.
What I do know is that I can’t possibly avoid being surprised, and that it’s as likely to be a good surprise as it is to be a bad one.
For myself, sometimes I’ve found that when it is difficult to look forward, it is easier to imagine looking back. The future holds anxiety and who-knows-what. But if I imagine looking back at 2019 in 2039, then I can figure out what it is I’ll want to see. I can’t know about the events, but I can know that I will want to be able to say that I gave my best, that I didn’t back down when it mattered, that I never gave up. I can know that, whatever comes, I want to be able to stand up and say that I didn’t leave anything on the table.
I look back at 2017 and 2018 and I see the fruits of despair and worry and dread. I see the stresses, the cracks. I see the times I gave myself a break and forgave myself for needing time and space and whatever else it took to stay mentally and emotionally healthy. And those are all okay.
But I want to do better in 2019.
I want to be able to look back at 2019 and know that I went to the well again and drew water from the bottom of the world. I want to look back at 2019 and know that I didn’t let myself fall into the messy habits of 2017 and 2018 — that I pulled myself back up to my better habits, my stronger work ethic. I want to look back at 2019 and know that I accomplished something. Whether that is a published book or 300,000 words of writing, right now, I dunno. But one of the two, at the least.
If not both.
What’s the point in aiming low, after all?
Great moments are born from great opportunity. And that’s what you have here, tonight, boys. That’s what you’ve earned here tonight.
One game. If we played ’em ten times, they might win nine. But not this game, not tonight. Tonight, we skate with them. Tonight, we stay with them and we shut them down because we can! Tonight, we are the greatest hockey team in the world.
You were born to be hockey players. Every one of you. And you were meant to be here tonight.
This is your time. Their time is done. It’s over. I’m sick and tired of hearing about what a great hockey team the Soviets have. Screw ’em. This is your time! Now go out there and take it!
I don’t know if 2019 is my one game. I don’t know if it’s my do-or-die. But I don’t know that it isn’t, either. I don’t know that 2019 isn’t the year that everything hangs in the balance.
All I can do is act like it is.
All I can do is know, when 2019 is closing, that I didn’t leave anything on the table. That I went to the well again and again and it never ran dry. That I fought to be uncommon, even when the world made me feel too small to stand.
2019 may not be my time.
But it might be.
Do you believe in miracles?
