We all have a little Brett Favre in us

Brett Favre- Just Like Us?

Brett Favre.  The saga.  The drama.  Well, it looks like it’s finally come to an end.  Which brings me to an interesting conversation on the topic I just had with a colleague of mine.  He is a fantasy football player and, although he didn’t play, is very knowledgeable about the game.  I often feel like people (people who have not played the sport at a high level or at all) should not voice their opinion. But I admit that is a pompous attitude.  But, in this case, I think most of the world (or those who follow the Favre saga, which seems to be the whole world) are wrong, even-and especially- former athletes.

As I have said (and will probably continue to say because I just can’t let it go, LOL), I played college football.  And after thirteen years of playing (from the age of eight), giving it up was hard.  Very hard.  Ask anyone who’s had to walk off the field or court or out of the pool for the last time and had to remove that uniform that you will he never wear again and he will tell you.  It is a very, very hard thing to do.  Very, very hard.  I cannot overstate that.

Now imagine if you’d played that sport for over thirty years.  Heck, Brett Favre played in the NFL longer than I played football period.  Now imagine that, after running around the track hundreds of times, or diving into the pool thousands of times, or grounding balls from your dad or coach for hours upon hours- all of a sudden you have to stop! Abruptly stop.  Tomorrow morning when the alarm goes off, you have no practice to go to.  You have no rehab to do.  And most importantly, you have no teammates to joke around with in the locker room.  Again: very, very hard.  Very, very, very hard.

Now that covers the audience who has played sports in their life.  But, it applies to everyone.  What if you were asked to stop designing websites, or stop dealing with employee issues, or stop closing the accounting books each month.  Right now.  “Uh, tomorrow morning. Don’t come to work.”  I see some of you smiling as if to say, “I’d welcome that!”  But would you?  If so, you are not living your passion, doing what you’re good at, or doing what you love.  And even then, I believe you’re not being completely honest.  Because whether or not you are doing what you were absolutely put on this Earth to do, you still take pride in going to work, in providing for your family, in defining to this Universe who you are.  And if it were taken away, who would you be?  If you were no longer a plumber, after doing it for thirty years, who would you be?  If you were no longer Sergeant Anderson of the Police force, how would people define you?  It’s simply not as easy as we armchair quarterbacks yelling at the TV set pretend it to be.

The more relevant argument might be that playing as long as he has is affecting his long-term health.  (I’ll save the argument of his tarnishing his legacy for another post- maybe)  We say, “Why doesn’t he just give it up!  He won’t be able to walk.  His arm’s going to fall off!”  That all may be true.  But it’s his body, it’s his life.  What do we care.  And I’ll leave you with this.  Take some inventory of your life.  We all are doing something that is not the best for us long term, down the road.  Maybe we smoke too much, even though we know our lungs will not be the same in twenty years.  Or we run every morning even though our knees kill us.  Or we drink not giving thought to our liver.  Or we stress about work, knowing it might have long-term effects.  Or we we keep going for a quick bite at the local fast food place, even though…well you get the point.  And we’re not getting paid millions of dollars for it!  Maybe Brett Favre should be telling us ‘Why doesn’t she just give it up!”