Online Dating Is A Lot Like Pre-Season Football

 

            Online dating is a lot like Pre-Season Football because it’s all about which rookie is going to make the team. Your team. 

You have your top draft choices going into the first round. The ones that look the best, show intelligence and know all the plays. They are the most promising and boy do they smell good.

            Then there are the later draft pics. They aren’t as sought after as the top choices but they can hold their own and are worth taking a look at especially when the first round pics prove to be disappointing.

            Of course you have your free agents. They’ve been let go from another team and they have the ability to sign with anyone who will take them.  But the question always is…why were they let go? It couldn’t be because they’re the best, something went wrong, yet we still give them the once over.

            Some may ask, what about the walk-ons? Well, that’s only in college football, but I will say from experience, you will get calls from the young ones. It’s like trying not to look at a train wreck, you just can’t help yourself. But after a few bouts with them, you toss them back, it’s catch and release…they really need to grow a little more.

            Pre-season football is about the team finding its identity, similar to the type of relationship one is looking for as the meet ups begin. Will it be a hard hitting team, translating to an emotionally, quick witted sparring relationship? Or will the team be methodical in its approach on the field, translation – slow and careful, one step at a time relationship. It can also be an “all or nothing team”-- hot and passionate relationship or we’re out.  One never knows as we give each and every rookie their time on the field.

            Now, for the locker room. Will it be respectful and dignified, or is it anything goes with no boundaries. Whatever the off-the-field looks like, and in relationships it’s what happens behind closed doors, it sets the tone for what happens on the field as each game brings us closer to the Super Bowl – a serious relationship.

            So we go out, put our best foot forward and we look for the serious players, the ones with heart for the game, and the one who can go the distance Then we sign them, and watch how the season progresses. We may have the winning combination, or we may not. But for all those who just can’t seem to put that winning team together…there will always be another season with new rookies and the hope that next season we will finally get it right.

            So, what do you do till that winning player is in your sight? You stay focused on your goal, be passionate with your encounters, and trust that the best is yet to come. 

Game on!!

"Ya Gotta Read The Field!"

Ya Gotta Read The Field!

            Michelle, my daughter-in-law, or Grasshopper, as I often refer to her taken from the "Kung-Fu" TV series, possesses more untapped potential than anyone I have ever met. Wife to my eldest son Jason at the age of 22, mother to my grandson Colin at the age of 24 along with becoming a certified public accountant that same year, scoring 99, 93, 92 & 84 on the four part accounting exam. Also, being a homeowner at the age of 25 puts her in the category of achieving a lot more than most given her few short adult years on this planet.

            As I’m visiting with her at her home on Long Island, she sits with tissues in hand and tears streaming down her face as she painfully explains her feeling of being stuck in her life. Worried about money, the idea of a second child haunting her and her full time job that is boring her out of her mind, she just can’t seem to get out of her own way.

“I’m tired, I’m bored, I hate my job, there’s never enough money. I can’t leave my job, how will the bills get paid.” She cries.

            “Alas, my darling, you’re not reading the field,” I say.

            “What?” she whimpers.

“In football the best players are able to get in position and before making their decision of where to tear up the line they read the field. They’re looking for an opening, they’re anticipating the moves of the other players and how they can maneuver through the line of defense and get to the end zone. Similar to life when you have to learn to spot opportunities. Learn how to read the world around you and anticipate certain changes and how they will impact opportunities coming your way.”

            “But how do you do that?” she cries.

“You breathe. You focus on being happy. You begin. You get in position, and you look around at the other players. What are they doing? You study the ones that have succeeded and you ask how they did it. You can’t back up your bet and that’s what you want to do. You want someone to tell you that you’ll win and no one can tell you that. It’s like free falling. You have to be willing to take the chance and believe you won’t splatter on a rock. That your dive will enable you to enter the water without injury. Life is set up for you to succeed. You don’t even need a backup plan, as a matter of fact if you set up a backup plan that just might be what you end up with. But if you visualize your success and accept no other scenario the Universe will have to deliver your dream or go one step further, deliver an even better scenario, one that you would have never dreamed possible.”

            Life is the ultimate team sport. You are the gladiator given everything you need to be successful if you just believe. You want guarantees, there aren’t any. And if there were what would be the point to all this. These challenges separate the men from the boys, or in this case the women from the girls.

            And I know what you’re thinking Grasshopper, “But how….?” Stop over thinking everything. Stop planning every little move. Calm down, visualize what you want in as much detail as possible and don’t ask how it’s going to happen. The “how’s” to this are none of your business. Does the field kicker ask about aerodynamics before he kicks the football through the uprights? No he doesn’t, he just focuses, kicks and voila through the goal posts it goes. He really doesn’t know how it happens he just knows that it does. And for those times when it doesn’t he will admit, he was distracted.

There is something greater than ourselves working for you out there. It is the intangibles, your gut feelings, those serendipitous moments, the power we were all born with to create. Your son knows it, why do you think babies are so happy? They look at us and think, WTF, have they all forgotten the power of thought?? Oh god I hope that doesn’t happen to me. There is power in the word “NO” but there is greater power in the word, “YES”.

If you want to be a worker bee and work behind a desk for 10 hours a day then so be it. There’s nothing wrong with that. But what I’m hearing is that you can’t stand it, you’re angry, you’re depressed, and you don’t love your life. Well, Grasshopper there is only one person to blame for that and it is you. So get away from your work desk and do what you have to do to move the energy toward your dreams. Knowing there are no guarantees except for the ones you put in place and that guarantee is that you don’t stop pushing toward the end zone until you have that football in hand and know that you are going to score…..a TOUCH DOWN!!