Disaster Planning

It could have been the biggest win of my entire career.  It was supposed to be the biggest win of my career.  I trained for weeks to make myself ready for it to be the biggest win of my career.  My coaches and my team made extra effort to prepare me for the biggest win of my career. 

It was an intense training camp.

On the night of weigh-ins, I learned from one of my opponent’s coaches that he, also, had been training for the biggest fight of his career.  They had much respect for me—that was an extreme compliment.  He didn’t give me any specifics about my opponent’s camp, of course, but he wanted me to know how important this fight was to his fighter.

It was important to me, too.

I wasn’t young anymore, in the twilight of my career.  I still had some fight left in me and wasn’t ready to stop.  He was young and aspiring, with a reputation for incredible conditioning and a bright future on the brightest stages MMA had to offer.  If he could beat me, it would launch his career to the next level.  If I could beat him, I could secure a place in the pantheon of top fighters in the region.

I had a chance, but it all fell apart in a single moment.

Our fight started fast.  He came out with overwhelming energy.  We exchanged strikes and circled the cage a couple times before he surprised me with a hard double-leg takedown.  He caught me off balance with excellent timing, turning his angle and lifting before driving me to the mat.

My shoulders touched for just a moment, but this wasn’t my first takedown defense.  Before he could settle into a dominant position, I was moving my hips and scooping an underhook.  It was a fundamental technique to execute—a basic tactical standup.  It’s something I’d been doing for years and didn’t even have to think about.

But I did think.  I hesitated.

There was another technique I had spent some been practicing.  It was a little more complex than the simple standup, and it was a little riskier, as well.  But when I did it well, it looked really cool.  I wasn’t great at it yet, but I’d hit it a few times in practice.  If I managed to execute, I would change the texture of this fight by reversing the position.

It’s weird how much can go through a mind in less than a second.  I processed probabilities and consequences and weighed the advantages and disadvantages between each potential technique—between fighting to my feet to neutral and diving under for the reversal.  All my thoughts collided in a single brief instant of doubt.

I shouldn’t have hesitated.  He was too good a fighter.  He did what he was supposed to do.  He took advantage of my pause and crashed through all my frames and overwhelmed my defense.

Nothing went right after that.

Every fight offers the possibility of defeat. That’s the nature of fighting. There can only be one winner.  Sometimes the winner isn’t me.  A lot of times the winner isn’t me.  There have been a lot of times when the winner didn’t get to be me. 

I can’t pretend the losses don’t get in my head.  They haunt me and leave scar tissue.  Obviously, I’m not just talking about fighting.  I’ve lost a lot at life.  I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and I’ve paid consequences for them.  I’ve taken damage for the mistakes of others.  Sometimes I have no idea who to blame.  Sometimes life causes pain because life is painful.

I’ve wanted things that I wasn’t supposed to want.  I’ve wanted things that were completely normal to want.  I’ve even wanted things that I thought were true desires of my heart.

I’ve wanted them and I’ve paid dearly for wanting them.

I tend to live more in my losses than I do in my wins.  I’m not sure if that’s unique to my personality or something others struggle with.  I have a bright outlook on life, for the most part.  But, also, I am constantly planning for failure. I’m expecting to fail.

I live thinking about bad things that could happen, usually based on the scars and damage inspired by the bad things that have happened before.  I define the fights of today with the losses from yesterday and assume that today will end the same way as it ended before.  It requires no effort for me to remember how much those losses hurt.  It’s automatic.

These thoughts are suffocating enough when they live only in my mind.  My mind is a battleground of constant unyielding thought.  But they don’t stay in my brain.  I wish I could keep them there, contained and imprisoned.  But that’s not where they stay.  They migrate.  They find a way out and become action—they manifest in the way I live my everyday life.  Sometimes they manifest in the way I refuse to live my everyday life.

I’m always planning for failure, so I’m always looking for an escape route.  I’m always planning for a disaster to strike and I’m always looking for a place to run.  I wish I could call it vigilance, but I think it tastes more like paranoia.

In a way, I’m embracing the second-best outcome, because I’m afraid to fail looking for the best one.

God has never spoken to me audibly—at least, if He has, I wasn’t attuned enough to recognize it.  However, there have been many times in my life when God has undeniably spoken into my heart.  Some of those times were profound, others were subtle.  But, if I’m honest, I will acknowledge that God has frequently revealed a path and a destination to me.

Sometimes I listen.  Not always, but sometimes.  I hear God’s voice and I know my steps have been identified.

A man's steps are established by the LORD, and He takes pleasure in his way.  Though he falls, he will not be overwhelmed, because the LORD holds his hand.  (Psalms 37:23-24) 

But God’s plan is scary, and my faith is shaky at best.  I’m bad about trusting God’s proposals, because they are almost always terrifying.  God has never called me to move forward into comfort and safety.  That’s not what it means to move forward.  Forward movement always requires effort and output and—often—pain.

There have been a few times when my coach gets a little rough—not out of malice but out of excitement.  He gets more excited about my fights than I do.  He grabs my shoulder and shakes me because he needs my attention.  I’m exhausted, so I don’t have much attention to give.  It’s been a hard fight and I think I’m ahead on the scorecard.  But maybe I’m not.

“Joel,” he says to me with that pointed tone that my ear has learned to recognize.  “We’ve got a real shot at this.  We’ve got a shot, but you have to do what I’m about to tell you to do.  This is not a time to dance or be elusive.  Get your hands up, move forward, and close the gap.  Go get me a takedown!”

It’s easy for me to stop focusing on where I am and to start looking at the outcome at the end of my journey.  My present becomes polluted by the future—by the future I anticipate.  I develop expectations and expectations breed anticipation.  Anticipation carries the possibility of disappointment.  I disappoint myself frequently.  I disappoint myself frequently because I expect to lose.  I’m terrified of my failures, and I invest bandwidth expecting them to reemerge.

I can do everything right and still lose.  It’s disheartening and it’s maddening, but it’s a truth that I’m forced to live in.  I can check every box, discover every clue, identify every barrier, and still manage to lose.  It’s not always my fault that I lose.  Sometimes I wasn’t meant to win, even when I did everything right.  It always feels like it’s my fault, mostly because I hate losing and the easiest person to blame is myself.  It’s not fair, but it’s true.  I can’t control the variables, and even my best efforts might result in destruction.

I’m moving better than I think I’ve ever moved.  I’m defending and attacking in near-perfect flow, chaining one behind the other and threatening submission at every turn.  My best technique is pouring through me.  Everything is on point.

It’s not enough.

He reverses my best guard-passes.  He crushes my frames with his hips and moves through defenses that work on every other grappler I’ve encountered.  I can’t even get close to passing his guard, even though I’ve been trying for nearly an hour.

He’s just better than me.  He’s legitimately a world class grappler and I am not.  I’ve been giving him my best and it barely phases him.

Still, he’s incredibly complimentary.

When our session ends, he is brimming with praise.  “Your posture is amazing.  You’re so strong.  You’re pressure is incredible…”

I’m flattered, I think.  But I know he’s better than me.  It’s obvious.  I gave him my best and he shrugged it off.

There was never a way for me to win.

Victory feels great in the moment.  I’m not going to lie and pretend there’s not a certain rush to having my hand raised at the end of a fight.  Winning feels great. 

But I don’t know what it really means to win.  I’ve got lots of medals and trophies, but most of them are in boxes somewhere.  There are a few of my more recent ones sitting on a random shelf somewhere in my house.  They’re cool, but they don’t mean anything.  They are pieces of cheap metal hanging on colorful ribbons.  They all represent times I won, but none of them define me.

I don’t actually know what it means to win, because I don’t actually know the whole story.  My victories—and my losses—are anchored in single moments of time.  They aren’t the overall narrative being written.  They are parts of the story.  Some of them aren’t even significant parts of the story, no matter how important they feel at the time.

There is a bigger story being written and I don’t have the eyes to see it.

I have expectations of my God.  I’m supposed to fulfill what he requires of me, and He’s supposed to give the desires of my heart.  And there they are—laid bare before Him—the desires of my heart.  He knows what I want, I know what I want, and the things I want are worthy of wanting.  They are normal things to want.  Wanting normal things should be a desire of my heart, yes?

There shouldn’t be a debate.  It seems fair that I should be able to present my very normal desires to God and He should wave His magic wand to validate all the desires of my heart.  It feels like God should give me a few easy wins.

But that’s not how God works, at least, not in my life.  He was a wider and longer view of my progress and He’s building me toward something greater than I can imagine.  I can’t see what He sees.  I must trust His perfect vision.  I must trust His perfect destination.

But I am not so good at trust.  Trust feels a lot like faith, and I have an exceedingly weak faith.

My immortal spirit is contained within the bounds of a mortal body and weighted to the anchor of time.  Every one of my victories and losses is rooted in memory.  I experienced them when they happened and I experience them again when I call them to the forefront of my fragile mind.  I can only see my victories and defeats for what they are, or for what they were.  I can never see them for the future of who I am going to be.

So, in my ignorance, I begin to seek an escape route, an alternate journey.  I look for a way out.  I become willing to trade my discomfort for a second-best option.  I refuse to reach for greatness because it’s painful.  I fail to see the value in suffering because I don’t know the value I can attach to it.  I’m too focused on the pain of the moment.

I find myself in strange conversations with God.  They are not the conversations of man of faith, or of a man who trusts his Lord…

“Why did you allow me to fail again?”

“Or did you break me on purpose?”

“I’d like to believe that you’re a gentle God who wouldn’t hurt me without cause, but also know that you’re the kind of God who knows my every weakness and this pain feels strangely customized to my every weakness.”

All of the faith and all of the trust in the world can’t save me from the pain of a sinful world.  And I can’t help but resent my God for that.  He’s a big God, so big He holds the whole world in His hand.  I pray to Him because I believe in Him, but I don’t know how to believe He is the God He told me He is.

He told me there would be pain, and He told me there would be suffering.

I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world." (John 16:33) 

God’s will for me is sometimes very clear.  There are obvious paths laid before me.  But, may other times, God’s course seems much less clear.  It’s like a spiritual scavenger hunt.  God’s path shows up as a dark and is seldom perfectly binary.  There’s a tug in my heart that says, “go that way”, but I know that the steps ahead of me will be rife with pain, resistance, and doubt.

He is telling me that there is something greater waiting at an undefined distance.  It’s far away—or maybe close by—in a place that I can’t see yet.  He’s telling me to move forward, even though it might hurt.  He’s telling me that there are no escape routes and no disaster plans.  Even in failure we will find a way.

I’m not going to lie—I’m no spiritual giant or theological heavyweight.  I struggle with faith and I struggle with trust.  But I know I heard God’s voice and I know He’s telling me that I need to keep moving forward even if it hurts.  If I pause to think and consider, I might admit that the resistance I encounter sometimes acts as a barometer.  After all, what is the reward for a journey that requires no sacrifice?  If I am moving in the direction God has intended for me, I am likely to encounter challenges along the path.  My adversary wouldn’t impede my escape, only my progress.  The enemy of my soul would love nothing more than for me to settle for less than God has purposed for me. 

I’ve settled for less many times, and that is truly losing.

Sure, the hurt often tells me that I’m moving in the right direction, but the hurt also feels like it means God doesn’t care about my pain.

I don’t have the sort of faith that trusts easily in God or God’s plan.  I don’t have confidence in the journey.  But this might be one of the few times in my life when my stubbornness could be a benefit.  I wish I could say that I stay if the fight for some deep spiritual reason, but the truth is that I don’t always know why I’m staying in the fight.  I have a stubborn streak in me.  I criticize my own faith frequently because of how weak I know it is.  But, even if I don’t have perceptible faith, I think I can act like I do.  I can stubbornly move forward as if I had faith.

It’s possible that the combination of stubbornness and my very small faith could resemble something like courage.  If I continue onward with courage, I might start to hope.  Hope feels a lot like faith, sometimes.

If I move forward in faith—even a treacherous and weak faith such as my own—I might begin to see just a little clearer.  Distant ambitions may begin to materialize and come close to where I can reach them.

And always there is one more intrusive battle that I find myself fighting in the middle of an already raging fight.  I’ve heard the voice of God and I’ve made the decision to follow, imperfect as the way I follow might be.  God doesn’t mind my imperfection.  He knew about them well in advance.

Despite my unsteady efforts, the prize we have been fighting for begins to take shape.  It comes into view.  I can almost reach it.  If I can lay my hand on it, I will 100% confirm the word I heard from my God.  I will know that I know His voice.

I hesitate.

I don’t deserve this.  I’ve grown so accustomed to the battle that I fear the rest.  I know I am unworthy and I don’t think I would have the strength to guard and protect this new reward once I own it.  I don’t know what it means to win.  I fear defeat because it feels like rejection, and I fear rejection more than I fear defeat. 

Maybe that’s a different fight.  Maybe it’s the same fight.  But I have to fight that fight the way I learned to fight the other ones—by acting like I have faith and remembering that victory doesn’t depend on me.

No, in all these things we are more than victorious through Him who loved us.   For I am persuaded that not even death or life, angels or rulers, things present or things to come, hostile powers, height or depth, or any other created thing will have the power to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord! (Romans 8:37-39) 

Never have I been so grateful to hear the sound of the timer.  It tells me that the round is over.  One more round in a sea of rounds that have been fought with many more to come.  That’s what my coaches told me.  We’re doing hard rounds, and we’re doing a lot of them.  Today is a hard day and it’s about mindset as much as technique.

I’m not sure about mindset, but my technique has all but disappeared.  I’m so exhausted that fighter I know I’m a lot better than have been treating me like a grappling dummy.  I’ve got close to nothing left and I find myself eyeing the door.

I want to leave.  I want to be done.

There’s always an excuse if I look hard enough.  I can say that I’m injured, because I’m pretty much always injured.  That would be a good reason to stop.  I could fake a sickness, which wouldn’t be all too hard to do because I’m feeling pretty drained right now.  I could just get up and walk out—I always have that ability.  Nobody is keep me prisoner here.  For some reason I do this stuff to myself.

All of these thought are arching through my mind as the rest counter runs down.  I’m there in a pool of my own sweat, not sure if I’ve got another fight in me.

My teammate makes way over to me.  He looks as rough as I feel.  It’s been a hard practice, and we’re not done.

“C’mon,” he waves a clumsy hand, beckoning me forward without offering me an option out.  “One more round.  You and me.  Let’s get to work.”