Day: August 31, 2015

Apologies for the creative yet completely silly title, but that is where my headspace is right now. You cannot talk fantasy football and not feel at least a little bit silly. That being said, lets put ten minutes o the clock and let it rip!

Surprises
I shouldn’t have any of these left at this point in my ‘fantasy career’ but every year something nutty goes down in at least one draft. In the league I’ve been with the longest, one of my fellow players drafted a team that is 50% injured or suspended through week 4. I guess he is looking for the late push?

The biggest surprise was the Seattle team. Now, I get that we all love our teams, but this dude drafted nothing but Seattle players for the first 4 rounds and ended up with about 75% of his roster being nothing but Seahawks. I suppose he is willing to eat the week 9 bye week loss, just to remain a symbol of the 12th man. I think he’s going to eat more than the one loss overall…

Victories
Draft day is where seasons can be won or lost. I had the first pick in my 2 QB league draft and snagged Le’Veon Bell. Truth be told, this was an auto pick. I wanted to get AP and watch him redeem himself, but I was late to the draft, because, life. Still I scored some big victories with my RBs on that team while managing to grab Romo and the Cutlet’s dad. I still cannot shake the memory of Michael Irvin working out with the Bears receiving corps and that group making some dazzling catches and Irvin sitting back like, I don’t have hands like that. This didn’t pay out last season but I believe it will now. If not, I grabbed RGIII for a song.

Flyers
I took a chance on Vic Cruz and Darren McFadden. I believe in McFadden more than Cruz this year even, but I acknowledge that both are risky picks. When the snake came round my way late in the draft I risked it all and connected the 1-2 pick. Later that same draft I snagged Jonas Gray and everybody laughed at me.

We’ll see who is laughing week 2.

I’ve been struggling to come to terms with a lot of things in life. Some big, some small. Some made of words, others of emotions. Choices, stratagems, shortcomings, goals–all making up the terms on which I choose to lead my life. Terms. The word itself invokes a sense of surrender that I once was very uncomfortable with. When I was a kid and secure in my belief that I would one day have and do everything I’d ever found whimsy to imagine, the thought of terms never occurred to me. As a man, cautious, aware, and wounded, I am still uncomfortable with terms, but I recognize that they occasionally provide me with solace and structure, creating livable meaning in an existence wrought with possibility.

We are who we allow ourselves to be. This is no platitude. It is a time worn truth visited over and again through literature, parenting, and even religion. We can be who or whatever we want, so long as we allow ourselves the space, time, and dedication to rise above the barriers set before us. We can do, so long as the terms we set for ourselves are absolute and driven.

On the other hand, we are one and all limited by terms. We choose to live our lives in service of our needs–first physical and then mental. It is the combination of those–the mental poker that occurs when we decide anything–that causes us to live in the space we choose or simply choose to accept.

Most of us are stuck.

Most of us look at the bonds of what holds us and say, ‘that is just how it is.’ but it isn’t hardly ever that way. I grew up in Harlem in the 70’s and 80’s. Stereotypically, I should be on drugs and in jail but neither are real. In truth, my ‘hood offered me those choices and also offered me the choice to be more. I chose more.

Many will argue that I had help, and I don’t argue that I did. I sought out help and created a means for success. At some point I grew fat on success and stopped trying. I cam to terms with my reality and withered greatly. Therein lies the truth and the rub. My complacency; my inability to continue to grow bore a psychological cancer in me that I continue to treat this day.

I still have to deal with the ice of terms, but being more aware of it allows me to better create the terms of my life moving forward, and never ever settle for sitting still.