We did get ours handed to us, it’s taken me a few days to recover, food lost it’s taste until this morning. But Bracketology has SDSU as a 3 seed, that will just have to be good enough, I can only hope that they learn from the loss.
It’s funny, but I’ve learned something about myself through the experience, I feel better equipped to handle a tournament loss now, because, win lose or draw, I’ll benefit.
******Warning, diatribe alert**********
So here’s what I’ve learned from their derailed cinderella season and how it related back to real estate, money, politics and life. I came to this site years ago because I felt there was an inconsistency in my world. I felt like I had done the right things, that I was educated, employed and worked hard, yet I couldn’t afford a house, not even one I wouldn’t really like. I began to doubt my choices in life, the results of those choices and why I was left to envy the position of people I didn’t respect. I began to doubt my self image, I’ve always thought I was good enough, maybe I’ve been wrong all along. Ultimately balance was restored because of hard work, market cycles and a little luck, but that’s just one area of life where it happened, one area where I felt my self perception was validated.
Then the SDSU cinderella season comes along. For years I was always very happy about my choice to go to school there, the friends I made, my fraternity brothers, the memories, the ex-wives I met while there, I made the right call and even though I had other choices I wouldn’t change a thing. But I’m a sports fan and I always felt a little envy of the other schools with traditionally strong programs, traditions of winning. Then I thought, if the little engine that could actually does, I’ll be validated in this area of my life too. But they began to stumble, BYU swept them, I entered a mild phase of self-loathing and suddenly it hits me. It doesn’t matter. I’m not on the team, I am living vicariously through them, just as I live vicariously through other professional teams. I don’t envy them, I appreciate them, they can do things on the basketball court I can’t do. There are things I can do that they can’t, that’s how it works. There are people with nicer houses, with more money or with more athletic abilities, none of that makes me any less and if it were to fall in my lap, it wouldn’t make me any more. So now I can appreciate the wins and not be affected by the losses, the way I appreciate a great painting in a museum, even though I cant buy it or paint it. I can appreciate beautiful women, nice sports cars and I can especially appreciate great stories of triumph and of overcoming obstacles even if I may never do anything as great. I’m hoping to translate this epiphany into a slightly different view of my world and my place in it, so yes, I’m O.K. wth a 3 seed for the aztecs, and maybe a 2nd or 3rd round exit in the tourney. It’s going to be just fine.
However, I will still never be able to get through to the end of the doccumentary of the 1980 USA hocky team (not the movie “miracle,” but the doccumentary) and not have tears streaming down my face at the end when Al Michaels screams, “Do you believe in miracles!” I mean, I can grow, but I’ll never change.
