Better Late than Never

So it begins.

Another opportunity for me to reflect, learn, grow, evolve and decide. To explore more fully what I need or want. To understand if I've decided to reach this point or arrived here and tried to convince myself it is success and happiness. To embrace Kurt Vonnegut's wisdom that "we are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."

I'm tired of these opportunities.

I'm tired of running from the demons of my past. I miss deeply the angels Maya and Tabitha who filled my life with compassion. From the movie Excalibur: "I didn't know how empty was my soul... until it was filled. " I still haven't had enough pauses between the frantic moments of life to fully mourn their loss. The thread between the feelings of loss from their passing to other losses in my life is tangible and clear, yet also fragile and tenuous. In their case, my compassion was unrestrained, unconditionally accepted and reciprocated. I thought this was true with...now I suppose I will find out.

Socrates said "the unexamined life is not worth living" but he didn't mention the difficulty of examining of one's life. What will happen when my mind and heart stop racing? When I stop, pause, be still, reflect without immediately thinking of someone else's needs?

The intensity with which I live has not been about passionately living in the moment. It has been about proving myself to others. I'm done proving myself to others. Lao-Tzu's statement seems especially appropriate: "Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power."

I could chalk all of this up to a mid-life crisis but that wouldn't do justice to the series of crises I have encountered throughout my life. What I do know is that the most important quote -- and hope -- for me is captured by "better late than never."

Group D Finales

Perhaps I'm being unfair, but I didn't sense a joie de football from Angola today. Contrast their performance with Trinidad and Tobago, who also found themselves with unexpected possibilities during the final game. On more than one occasion, Angola's players were yelling at and pointing fingers at each other. Soccer can provide great escapism, but reality, both on and off the pitch, eventually has a way of making its inevitable impact. It couldn't have been easy to rely on Portugal for help, though they did their part for Angola (from a soccer perspective only, I repeat, from a soccer perspective only). Iran has played positive soccer throughout each of its games, and they deserved some reward. Angola didn't reach what must have been initially an unthinkable summit, but they did end up with two points, and their first World Cup goal. I hope they don't mind sharing the points with Iran on this day, who managed to salvage one point. More importantly, they showed that a country's place in the political landscape doesn't have to define its place in the soccer landscape. Can you think of another country for which this might be true?

Portugal and Mexico seemed intent on scoring goals. Even at the end of the match when Portugese manager Scolari was asking his players to hold the ball, they persisted in attacking the Mexican goal. Mexico must have known that their passage into the next round was never really in jeopardy, but even at the end of the match, they wanted more goals. The game featured another missed penalty kick (by a country mile), and a stutter step penalty kick. Not quite the style that Socrates used in the classic Brazil v. France match in 1986 but Simao had a better outcome :-)

In 2002, Mexico looked formidable during the group stage, but lost to the US in the second round. They haven't played as impressively in the current offering and they now face a match with Argentina. It's going to take a special performance from Mexico--or anyone for that matter--to beat Argentina. Portugal advances past the first round for the first since 1966 when the magnificent Eusebio led them to a third place finish. Perhaps Portugal has paced itself, and today they rested five players with yellow cards, but they haven't been pushed yet. I'm sure the Netherlands will offer a serious test.