What's Luke Thinking?

Taking a break from my homework this morning to enjoy a banana and tea, my mind drifted back to my time playing high school tennis; enjoying the same meal at years of regional tournaments awaiting my turn. At first, it was a simple feeling of longing for my feet to slide on the pavement again, and my arm to sling forward and caress the ball to obey my command as it shoots back across the net. The sport challenged me in a way that I don’t often experience anymore, and I think that’s what I really miss, rather than the sport itself.

Quickly after the feelings of missing playing, however, came the devastating weight of the feeling of loss. First, the loss I experienced in the state tournament my senior year. Then, the loss I experienced never being able to redeem myself. I’ve explained many times to those in my circle that the loss experienced then was different, of course for the typical reason that everyone wants to be “champ,” but also for the reason that no matter how hard I worked, I could never make it back to that point. In previous years, I’d experience a loss and just tell myself “It’s okay. We’ll be back on the court tomorrow getting ready to give it another go.” While I’ve discovered that’s a great mentality for life in general, it wasn’t so great for high school tennis, since its time was limited. Unlike many things that we are told in life are a marathon and not a sprint, high school sports definitely are a sprint: attempting to become the best possible in the shortest amount of time.

Reflecting on the loss now, as I’ve accepted the fate I’m not joining the ATP Tour and playing against Nadal anytime soon, it at first seemed very trivial that I would be so upset over such a thing back then. In the grand scheme of my life, whether I won or lost that, it would not have had that much of an effect on the rest of my future. In fact, I believe I’ve learned and grown more from losing rather than if I would have won. So, in my second thought about the “trivial” matter of believing something is important, when, in the future it may not be, it seems better to dive even harder into it than before. At the end of the road, if one gives everything they have, whether it matters or not, there can be no regrets, and there can be no misunderstanding of just how important that was, because in that moment, it’s the most important thing on Earth.

This, at first, sounds semi-contradictory to the understanding that as time goes on, things become less important, but I think it makes more sense than not caring about things because of said understanding. Typically, when this is realized, it comes with a diminishing of one’s own experiences and belittling themselves on what they used to hold important. Even now, however, I can only imagine what I stress over that will one day be but a faint memory I recall while eating my breakfast. Without the knowledge of what will be “important” or “not important” to me in the future, I can only help but to make everything important and to give myself as many opportunities and as little regrets as possible.

“Time has a wonderful way of showing us what really matters.” Margaret Peters