One thing I struggled with early in my career was the delicate balance between my performance and my identity. When things on the field went well, I was cheerful and felt important. When things went poorly, my countenance and self-concept plummeted, and I was not pleasant to be around.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the struggle of separating personal identity from professional performance.
Benjamin Watson expresses the difficulty he faced in his career regarding the connection between how he performed in his professional life and how he perceived himself. His mood and self-worth fluctuated based on his successes and failures on the field, illustrating the challenge many individuals face in maintaining a stable sense of identity independent of their work performance.
In practice
During a team meeting, you might refer to this quote to discuss the importance of maintaining a positive self-image regardless of project outcomes.
We all have the same problem as human beings. And it's something that we are born with, and we just see it manifest in different ways. And in this situation, it's racial. It's brutality. It's people breaking the law. It's the smoke, but the underlying fire is something that we all have to deal with, and that's our sin.
It's been a constant struggle with my athletic career to identify myself as a child of God and understand that His love is unconditional for us; it's not conditional like fans, or coaches, or even myself.
We need to look at truth. We need to look at justice, and we need to look at righteousness. And let that be our guide going forward.
By deciding to live our lives based on solid values and unwavering truth, we can leave a legacy for the young men and boys who want nothing more than to follow in our footsteps.
Sometimes, we feel like we don't want to offend people, but there are times that we need to express ourselves without fear that somebody is going to shut us down simply because we have differing opinions. That's how we grow.
I think, as athletes, we've been given a platform, and we can use it in a lot of different ways. We can use it for negative. We can use it for positive. We can be indifferent. But if you've been given a platform, I think God is pleased when you share... His truth in love.
In any moment, no matter how lost we feel, we can take refuge in presence and love. We need only pause, breathe, and open to the experience of aliveness within us. In that wakeful openness, we come home to the peace and freedom of our natural awareness.
People who are aware of, and ashamed of, their prejudices are well on the road to eliminating them.
At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door and say,—'Come out unto us.' But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act.
To live life is to make a succession of errors. Understanding this can bring us great ease and forgiveness for ourselves and others.
Because in the school of the Spirit man learns wisdom through humility, knowledge by forgetting, how to speak by silence, how to live by dying.
Don't expect your genius to be discovered; do what you must do because it gives you joy. Don't expect your love to be accepted. Love because it justifies your life.
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