Learning to See the Light Through the Darkness

Today, I will tell the story of my first school in-game dunk attempt.  I’m stressing the school league because it wasn’t my first-first game dunk attempt.  As far back as I can remember, I was fascinated with basketball, but I was not the sit-and-watch basketball type.  My father uses to harp on the fact that I needed to be watching the game, then I didn’t want to hear it. Now I understand why he was pushing me to watch the game.

     Currently, technically I’m still an active professional basketball player even though the last couple of years have not gone as planned. For over 20 years, I’ve been dunking the basketball in-game, and my father is my witness, I enjoyed dunking.  Maybe too much because I did not develop real skills, other than simply throwing to ball toward the basket, and I will do the rest. That is a great plan if you stick with it, however somewhere along the way, I got it in my head, I needed to learn to shoot the basketball.

             That idea came after high school when it seemed like my growing days were over.  To rewind a bit to that first school-league game dunk attempt, because I have to be honest, I missed.  It was the middle school championship game hosted in the newest high school gym. You can see in the photo the many different expressions on everyone’s face.  I’ve recently started to practice seeing things in a better light because even though having a chip on your shoulder can help achieve many things. The weight of that chip can start to become too heavy to bear.

             I saw that middle school dunk attempt as a failure because I missed it, I let my team down and after that, the other team went on a run to cut our lead to eventually tie the game.  We did go on to win the game but it was a fight to the finish.  I say all that to hopefully hope you see this very point and that is; it never dawned on me that I use that event as dark fuel instant of inspiring light.  I even gave the excuse I was tired and whatever else was the truth but still an excuse.  I was embarrassed over that and many other events until I see the light through the darkness.

             See, I was being laughed at for trying that dunk, I beat myself up and allowed it to weigh on me. Yet it never crossed my mind that I was only 13 years old and had the balls to attempt a dunk in the championship game. I said all that to say; all things work together for your good, but sometimes you have to do the work in finding the silver lining.

Live life free and stay fit!

J’Nathan Bullock CSCS