“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” — Helen Keller

Sports teach lessons, in addition to the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

They do so for both the participants and the spectators, both are more intense for those in the action than the ones on the sideline.

Sometimes, the lessons learned take a while to absorb or process. Sometimes they arrive quickly, and sometimes they don't. This is a story about the agony of defeat that helped me gain perspective that carried over to my post-high school mindset.

This year the very talented Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association embarrassed themselves with their performance and lack of… just about everything needed to win. The Celtics were losers, not winners this year, in spite of talent, coaching, financial resources and their fan base. They just didn’t get it done, again.

They faced some adversity, Covid-19 quarantines, injuries, etc. While you might be thinking ‘excuses are for beginners and losers,’ and you’d be right, I think there is another reason that the team was so unimpressive. It is related to their perspective on adversity.

The sporting experience that started my understanding took place as an athlete at Braintree High School. As a senior, the soccer team had a stellar 14-2 record and only allowed 2 goals all season: two 1-0 losses to Needham High School. Otherwise we might have been undefeated. There was little consolation that Needham was the eventual State Champion that year. It still hurt to lose those games by such a razor-thin margin. Agony of defeat is never fun.

Although we might have had the 2nd best team in the State, and second best by only a small margin, we still were not the State Champs, just as the Boston Celtics are not 2021 World Champions. There was nothing I could do about it back then, and there is nothing they can do about it in 2021. It is over and done with and they, like me, have the rest of their lives to get on with it and over it, even though they might not ever be the same.

That experience when I was younger helped change my thinking, even though it seems so long ago, and this disastrous basketball season will change the thinking and perspective of the current members of the Celtics in ways they won’t fully recognize for years.

My thinking changed because after that season I realized that not only wasn’t I going to win every time, but that I would probably come very close to winning, but still fall short more than once. I started thinking that it would serve me well if I developed a perspective to call on when adverse outcomes resulted.

This is not negative thinking, as the optimists out there might claim, quite the contrary. It is a perspective that says you should try to make the most out of adversity by learning something, or benefiting somehow, or having the adversity make a positive difference in future outcomes.

They say adversity builds character, but I say, I have enough character and I don’t need any more adversity.

In spite of that attitude, some benefits adversity delivers, if handled with the proper perspective, are:

Have you ever thought that the most impressive people you know, the ones that are most admired are those that have faced adversity and not let it stop them? In fact, all of the impressive people you have met in your life have overcome significant adversity in their past, even if you are unaware of what that adversity was.

How do I know this? I know this because everyone impressive you have ever met owes part of that impressiveness to their ability to overcome adversity.

The reason that I can be so sure of that is the knowledge that the alternative to overcoming adversity is to give up, and that wouldn’t impress you would it?

In fact, giving up doesn’t impress anyone. The reason I can be so sure that most of the impressive people you have met in your life overcame adversity is that the times when you have impressed yourself the most, were times YOU overcame adversity.

Let’s face it, without adversity in our lives, we would lose one of the most important (if unpopular) measuring sticks we have. Taking pride in bouncing back is always sweeter.

If we can’t take pride in bouncing back, then a huge source of our self-worth would be denied to us. I don’t feel any better about the what’s happened to the Celtics this year, regardless of how therapeutic this essay might be to me.

But I do feel better about myself today because the Celtics season reminded me of the toughness, persistence, solutions, bonds, and empathy that adversity has help mold into my character, and I hope that this paragraph has reminded you of the toughness, persistence, solutions, bonds, and empathy that adversity has helped mold into your character: because those attributes are the reasons YOU are impressive to people you meet.

So, would I trade a State Championship in soccer all those years ago in exchange for the lesson or perspective I took from that season? First choice, I’d like both, but if I have to choose, developing a perspective on handling adversity has been more valuable than a trophy.

After this Wednesday Weblog was written, I drove to Nashville, Tennessee. Outside of Louisville, a truck started losing its gravel load and pebbles came at the windshield like bullets from a machine gun. Cracks everywhere, 900 miles from home. Adversity.

Just north of Nashville at 70 miles per hour my left front tire blew. Noisy as hell. I managed to get to a safe location only to find out, from the AAA tow truck driver, that the key to unlock the wheel should have been in the car, but is was not. I will speak with the dealer on my return.

The car was towed to a Firestone and they figured out a way to get the spare 'donut' tire on the car. I found a tire store near the hotel, but the tire did not exist in Nashville, so I had them put another size on. Then it took four days to get a windshield replacement appointment.

In spite of this adversity, we did and saw everything that was planned for Nashville. I think it was because of the perspective, but you can make your own assessment.

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