What Do You Do When It Happens To You?

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There is always one wrestler in the State Tournament each year who is the unfortunate recipient of an injustice so tragic, so unimaginable, so unfair, so heartbreaking that the pain caused by the said event will be so unbearable that it will break your heart to witness.

Somehow, someway, unfortunately it happens in every State Tournament.

At least one wrestler always seems to have their dream shattered, trampled open, by a set of circumstances so bizarre it makes you wonder how it could ever happen.

Some circumstance will go awry and so off the tracks that everything that wrestler worked for, dreamed of, will be unfairly and unjustifiably taken from them.

Snatched from them.

Stolen from them.

The degree of difficulty to watch the injustice unfold is amplified if you happen to be close with the wrestler, their family, and consider them to be on your dream team in life.

With over 400 wrestlers in the State Tournament, the odds of it not happening to you are pretty good.

But what do you do, if it happens to you?

If you are the unfortunate wrestler – buckle up because it is going to hurt like hell.

You may not want to hear it but the sad truth is that the hurt will never subside.

It will never go away.

No matter what anyone says to you or how much time passes – it will always hurt.

And it will hurt bad.

Forever.

That is the honest truth.

And the sooner that you understand this the better prepared you will be to beat it.

Every “I’m sorry” that you hear people say to you will burn up inside of you faster than a bead of cold water dropped on a hot skillet.

Every “I know how it feels” you hear will aggravate you to no end.

Get used to it.

It will never hurt less.

For that is a tribute to how much you care.

So what do you do?

The first thing you need to do is to cap it.

Cap the hurt to 49% and then elevate everything good in your life to fill the 51%.

By doing so never allows the event to be able to control you.

When the hurt attacks you trying to attempt to get above 49%, you defend your 51% stake like you would if someone jumped the moat and was storming the castle.

You fight to the death to defend the 51%.

In the space available for the 51% – you fill it with MORE.

More care.

More belief.

More work.

More hope.

More Dreams.

You never stop dreaming.

For it is dreams that make you alive.

I understand that your dream is no longer possible to obtain.

But you keep your dream alive by parlaying it into another dream.

A bigger dream.

You fill the 51% with your belief system.

Recommit to your beliefs, even after the injustice.

Believe in hope.

Believe in justice.

Believe that hard work wins..

Double down on discipline.

You minimize the hurt by putting borders around it.

Impenetrable borders.

Create a space where it can never enter.

I call it the “Andy Dufresne space”.

dufrresne

Make the injustice cringe when it looks at you, watches you.

Act like the Who’s in Whoville when the Grinch stole their presents on Christmas Eve.

Sing aloud like they did – Fahoo Fores, Dahoo Dores.

Make the Grinch scratch his chin in bewilderment.

For when you do – when you become unbreakable,

You win.

Then replace it.

Don’t allow yourself to be known by this event.

Set out to do something greater.

Exchange events in people’s memories for which you will be known.

It is a sad but true fact of life that there will be things that happen to you that can never be justified by the saying everything happens for a reason.

No reason will ever seem equitable to what you lost.

It just won’t.

Don’t let it make you callous though.

Feel more.

Do more.

Want more.

Be yourself more.

What the injustice wants to do is to beat you everyday of your life.

Don’t let it.

You are a wrestler.

You are a fighter.

You are a winner.