More Than a Kick

Trey Smith

Yesterday each of the two National Football League (NFL) games featured one winner and one loser. Two teams faced off in each conference to determine which teams will meet at the Super Bowl in 2 weeks. As it so happens, those two teams will be the New England Patriots (my favorite NFL team) and the New York Giants.

Both games ended with the victorious team winning by a field goal (3 points). In the game involving the Patriots, the opposing team's kicker missed a field goal in the last seconds which would have sent the game into overtime. In the game involving the Giants, their kicker successfully made his field goal try in overtime.

In both instances, the kicker's success or failure stands out as the pivotal play in each game. The way most people will remember these games is that one kicker won the game for his team, while the other lost it.

While I have used [American] football as a backdrop for this post, my message this morning isn't really about sports. We humans tend to have very short attention spans and, because of this, we place way too much emphasis on the last word or action of an event or circumstance that is the culmination of many variables.

While there is no question that, in terms of the New England - Baltimore game, a successful kick may well have altered the final outcome, the same could be said of each and every play that transpired throughout the entirety of the game. If the quarterback hadn't overthrown his receiver or if a runner hadn't slipped or if one of the defenders had not missed a tackle, the whole trajectory of the game might have changed from that point forward.

This very same notion applies to our lives as well. In everything we think, say or do, our lives could be transformed dramatically if we had turned left instead of right or not blurted out hurtful words instead holding our peace (for two of an endless range of possible examples).

The last act of any given situation -- the one we so often remember -- is just one mere step along a path strewn with missteps and right steps. This is why living in the moment is so vital (the same point I made in one of yesterday's posts). We never know when any given moment might be the seminal one in our finite existence.

What a shame it would be if that seminal moment came and went, yet we didn't notice it because we weren't paying attention!