For those of you who are following sports, the baseball season has begun, March Madness and fantasy basketball have finished.
This blog entry is dedicated to my recent fantasy basketball and March Madness experiences.
1) Fantasy Basketball
For those of you who don't know, I take pride in the fact that I often make very few moves during the season out of faith in those I drafted, even in the face of injuries to my players. However, I rejected my philosophy of loyalty in the final week, and paid the price. Over the past 2 weeks, 6 of my players have fallen victim to injury. This is devastating in fantasy play, especially since I am in the league's final championship week. As a result, I panicked and all dropped all of those players and picked up mediocre ones in their place. Keep in mind that I have been faithful to these players throughout the season. Well, it just so happened that their injuries were not so serious, and they came back to drastically outplay the new players I had just picked up. As a result, I lost this week and ended up 2nd in the standings, despite being 1st in the regular season. Ok, big deal, so I end the season with the best record, and end up 2nd in league play. Honestly, it doesn't really matter to me what place I ended up in or how well I did because in a few weeks I will forget about it and my life will be no different.
So what did I learn? To be loyal to my players? To plan in advance how to beat opponents? The most pressing lesson was to witness the ease with which I fell victim to panic and chose to react, not respond. I made a moment bigger than it was, and deviated from a strategy that had driven me to a successful season. Reacting too quickly was the problematic issue at hand.
2) March Madness
At work I joined a pool of 40 people with a $10 buy-in. At the end of the tournament, the 1st place person would be given 75% of the pot, and 2nd place 25%. Giving myself no chance to win, I merely picked teams who I liked when I watched them play during the year, and looked forward to trash talking co-workers during breaks. Two weeks into the tournament, I'm in 1st place! Just to give proof, see the above table. People at work started coming up to me and saying congratulations, it looks like you're going to finish in the top 2. As the final game between Butler and UConn came around, I was in a secure 2nd place. The only way for a different finish was if UConn won, then a co-worker in 5th would jump to 1st, and I would be left in 3rd place. When the work day finished, co-workers were surprised at my statement: I wished UConn to win. First, someone at the company would win the prize (other companies had joined). Second, I would get free lunch (winner buys everyone who had a bracket). Third, my co-worker would be super happy! Fourth, this would become a company legend, how Ben (my co-worker) was the only one who picked UConn to go all the way. If I happened to finish second, the only winner would be me because there wouldn't be enough to treat everyone to lunch, and there probably be no word on the brackets again. The best gain to be had was for me to not win any of the pot, and for my co-worker to win it all. For some reason, others could not understand this. We must seek out mutual gain scenarios, in which the most gain!
In terms of our present life, it is Christ! With Christ there is so much to gain, and it is not exclusive! Grace is offered freely to those who recognize the sinful state of their heart, see Christ for who he is, and accept the grace that has been offered through the salvation performed through the death of God's only son.
John 4:
Boasting About Tomorrow
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
