I will get ready, and then, perhaps, my time will come. – John Wooden
John Wooden was a college basketball coach, known primarily for his work at UCLA, where he won ten national championships, a record for a men’s team coach. Coach’s influence on us over the years has been profound. Though our modest talents hardly warranted this type of training, Dad shipped us off to his basketball camp a couple of times as a kid and long after we’ve needed to box out or set a screen the lessons we learned about work and patience influence us today.
I will get ready…
It doesn’t matter who we are, or what we are trying to do with our lives, we must prepare. Whether it’s preparing for a career or to start a family or to chase a dream, we must put ourselves in the best possible position to succeed. We can only do that if we know ourselves. We must know what we want and what we can and cannot do and then we must put the work in to get the most out of the talents we were issued at birth.
We must use ambition with finesse and skill because ambition is a blade with two edges. On the one hand, it’s how things get done. It provides the inertia to go and make something happen. But ambition can be a hindrance, too, limiting us to what we want to become rather than what we can become.
…and then, perhaps, my time will come.
No matter our talents or goals, we must realize there is an awful lot out of our control. For example, we have some zero control over what others say, think or do. It is also useful to remember that there are several billion people on this planet, all of us leading random lives, and there is an awful lot that is out of our hands.
But if we prepare ourselves, and if we become what we were meant to become, the life we want is there for the taking. Our time will come.
The Thought for the Day runs regularly. Quotes are from Gaylon’s private stock.
