Promise Cut Short

The Super Bowl is indeed a time of excitement and promise. The two best football teams in the nation square off against each other with the prize being a super bowl and a spot in history. Fans (About 91 million) eagerly wait for the anticipated showdown and, of course, the always entertaining and ridiculously priced super bowl advertisements. Players, coaches, and staff know that it is the most important day they will have for years to come and most likely, will not get another chance. It’s a special day for many, but a day of painful memory for one. Tiquan Underwood, a wide receiver on the New England Patriots (one of the teams playing in the super bowl), was released today, the day before the biggest game of his career, the super bowl. Imagine, working so hard and putting in so much time just to get to this stage, and then something out of your control undermines all of you hard work. Indeed, he wasn’t an integral player on the team, but unlike some players, he played in 6 games and had catches in 3 of those games. The point is, he did what he could to help the team and though it wasn’t much, it was more than most. Fortunately, Underwood has taken the news in stride recognizing in his tweets that his situation is still better than most and is grateful for what he has. What we realize by these unfortunate events is that Football, and life for that matter, is business. What it boils down to in the end is “What is going give you the best chance of success?” with this case success being a super bowl victory. In the end, players’ and coaches’ egos and emotions have to be ignored and the situation assessed for what it truly is, a cutthroat business. Life too, regrettably, can be examined in a similar light. Put simply, it’s a competition between many players. Everyone desiring to do well and better themselves and their families. Occasionally, this causes us to act without regards to morals or others’ emotions because we so badly desire our own success wealth. However, society excepts this as part of the game, or part of life. It is the necessary collateral that one will suffer in order for others to succeed, thus, you, like Tiquan has, must remember two things in life: 1: Always work hard and ask yourself what you can do to improve yourself/situation and 2: Be grateful for what you are given and what you have for the moment because like Tiquan, you might not have it for long.