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Fridays With Joe - Week 10

In case you missed it, earlier this week, the Boston Celtics won the NBA Championship.  Last season the team finished as one of the worst in the league and just one year later they are the best.  How did such a dramatic change happen so quickly?  Well, they definitely added some incredible talent, but other teams have done that before and not achieved the same result.  My belief is that more than talent it was self-sacrifice and interdependence that brought the Celtics the title. 

As we mentioned in our article earlier this week, the team’s motto this season was “ubuntu”, an African term which describes a philosophy of life which holds that all people are interconnected and part of a greater whole.  In this philosophy every member looks to help lift the others up knowing that if one is humiliated they all are, but on the same token, when one succeeds they all do.  The players emodied this philosophy in that none of them seemed to care about playing time or individual statistics.  The “Big Three” as they were called actually had below average seasons, statistically speaking, but the result was a team victory.

I believe the lessons of this victory go beyond the basketball court.  In life, we must realize the importance of interpendence with others; the importance of relationships.  Our successes and failures are forever tied to those of the community around us, and no matter how great an achievement may seem its not complete if it doesn’t lift others up as well as yourself.  In addition we must be willing to trust others to help provide the ideas, resources, encouragement, and love we need to reach our goals; and at the same time be willing to give them the same in return.  Dr. King said it best in Strength To Love when he wrote: “I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.”

If we fail to realize this we are destined to live a life of emptiness no matter what we accomplish, but if we can learn to value relationships our lives will always be full even when we fail.

-JH

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