a great man died on friday.

thanks to my mom, i grew up knowing who john wooden was, his legacy and his wisdom. i even had the honor of meeting him in person.

also thanks to my mom, we own just about every book written by him. in reading his books, it is undeniable that this man was more than just a great coach. he was a man who strived to live a perfect life and although it is impossible to live a perfect life, i believe that john wooden came very close.

here is an excerpt from one of his books, wooden: a lifetime of observations and reflections on and off the court:

early on i came to believe that you should learn as if you were going to live forever, and live as if you were going to die tomorrow. what does this mean? in the simplest way, i would explain it like this.

always be learning, acquiring knowledge, and seeking wisdom with a sense that you are immortal and that you will need much knowledge and wisdom for that long journey ahead. know that when you are through learning, you are through.

but i want to live that life as if i were going to die tomorrow: with relish, immediacy, and the right priorities. i also will not waste even a minute.

thanks coach for being a true role model.

i have a love/hate relationship with that word. i love that it brings excitement and expectation into my life, but i hate that it means i have to wait and wonder about things to come. the waiting part is pretty easy, especially since there's really nothing i can do to speed things up. it's the wondering part that's a real killer. have you ever wondered about something and then found yourself being consumed by that thought, unable to escape it? the thing about wondering is that you never really know how it turns out because it's all in your imagination.

i think it's funny how our impatient human nature figured out a way to make time speed up without time actually speeding up. no wonder people are so disappointed when they experience the real world. we spend our time dreaming up an awesome scenario and when we are faced with reality, we take a step back and think, "wait a minute, it's not supposed to be like this..." but i'm being pessimistic again.

on a brighter note, anticipation gives us hope and expectation, which gives us the strength and courage to move on. even if the real world fails to live up to our expectations, i think what allows us to continue to live in that reality is the fact that we choose to have hope and anticipate the good in this broken world. as stubborn as that makes us humans sound, i would rather be stubborn and continue to anticipate the good than give up all hope and live a disappointed life.

as summer begins, i will continue my love/hate relationship with anticipation and wonder about how things will go down this fall when i move to a different city, start law school and attempt to build a new life 2,000 miles away from home.

it's exciting and terrifying at the same time.
but i am comforted knowing that my shepherd will be with me every step of the way.

whether or not we are aware of it, we all have a safe place that we go to whenever life seems to let us down. for most, it is an actual place like a coffee shop, our home or the beach. for some, it is doing an activity that, for a moment, takes us away from our disappointing reality like running, sleeping or watching a movie.

my safe place is the infinite and indescribable world of music. unlike my reality, music never fails to comfort me. i love when music reveals itself to me in an entirely new way, bringing me joy in the midst of this broken, dark world. i drown myself in the words, rhythms and melodies of people who are able to express what is going on inside of them. i allow myself to get carried away by the artist's emotions and experience because for that moment, i am free from the responsibilities and realities of my life.

often times, i am jealous of musicians because they are able to identify the emotions, confusion and madness that is going on inside of themselves. even though nothing much changes for them in respect to the circumstances they are in, for the period of time that they are singing, their mind is allowed to run away and rest in their safe place. i am thankful for these artists for allowing me to run away and rest with them.

recently, all the songs i've been listening to contain the word hallelujah. something about that word comforts me more than any other word. after looking up the definition, i understood why. hallelujah means praise God. truly, God is the greatest comforter one could ever have and that is definitely worth all my praise.