It's not often we write about serious things here on this blog, but this is going to be one of them.
Everyone can go back through their lives and pick out particular crossroads moments where one decision could send their life in one direction or the other, with very different results. My first major crossroad was to turn down a full athletic scholarship for a college that promised me playing time and a half academic scholarship.
This was closely followed by my decision not to rehab my right knee, injured during the first week of training, for a third straight year. I was tired of doctors, poking, prodding, and large doses of daily pain without a guaranteed reward. In making this decision, I met my wife, we've had 4 great kiddos, and I sit here writing this instead of playing in Major League Soccer.
This really bothered me for several years until 2007 when I got a chance to train with Toronto FC for a week. Even though I was less than successful and managed an injury on field turf that took me 6 months from which to recover, it was still an extremely rewarding experience. In 2008 I got an opportunity to train with the San Jose Earthquakes and in the final scrimmage as a starting forward at the age of 27 I was able to chest and volley a 60 yard pass directly onto the foot of my other forward for the game winning goal. At halftime I sat there and realized that even though I may not have gone in that direction, that I could have, 10 years later, was good enough because I was satisfied with the life I had made.
That's the problem we have today. We're not satisfied with the lives we have made for ourselves. We blame others for our pain, our circumstances, or our perceived inabilities to meet our definition of success instead of taking responsibility for it and attempting to make a change ourselves. Don't get me wrong - I'm very guilty of doing the same thing - blaming others for my bad decisions or the ones that I regret.
I might make fun of the Occupy Together movement and pretty much everything else on this blog at some point, but Occupy Together has one thing going for them: they're finally standing up for what they believe in. A little backbone, a little stamina, a little luck, and a lot of determination is how all of the prior generations were able to make their own American dream.
It's true that I may not have the greatest slice of paradise, but not delving into theology or faith, I can say that what I have is what I've been fortunate enough to carve out for my family and it's
mine. No government, no entity, no corporation, no one period is going to take that away from me without my permission. The problem is that so many of us give that permission willingly without even thinking about it.
If we as a country, as a people, can stand up for our beliefs, accept a differing opinion not as a personal threat but as a possible overlooked insight, and work together to rebuild what we have allowed to become so broken, we can make our country great once more. If we cannot do that, we will simply be a 200+ year footnote in history. We all will have to make that choice in the coming days and this will be the next great crossroads moment for many of us - which path are you going to choose?
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