Amber Leads The Way Once Again

For those who have followed my personal adventures along the Purposeful Path over this past year, you will recall that Amber's desire to be in the Jericho Productions play, Cheaper by the Dozen, led me to my acting debut in the play as well. Once again, Amber has guided me to what's next in living on purpose, this time in the arena of sports and fitness. She joined the YMCA's youth volleyball league a few weeks ago. Of course, as a devoted father I've made it to several of their practices and all of their games. (Her teammates remarked at the last game, "Your Dad is really LOUD!" I confess I really love to cheer for them.) In fact, I've become so inspired that I looked into and discovered that they also have a adult coed league that meets on Monday nights at the Y and so I've joined that league. I went to a practice session this past week and ended up playing several games with the "A Team" members from the more advance league. I held my own in the technical arena of returning shots, making serves, etc. but since I've never played any 'organized volleyball' I noticed as the game went on that I began to feel lost and disoriented on the court. It finally dawned on me that the rest of the team had a fairly simple and straight forward strategy they were following that I was clueless about. Finally, one of Amber's coaches who was on the same team with me, shared with me the strategy. Boy, did I feel foolish. Yet at the same time I realized afterwards that it was one more way my Inherited Purpose had shaped my life without my being aware of it. "I have to be smart and know all the answers or pretend that I do..." was the part of my IP that kept me from simply starting out by letting my teammates know that I hadn't played organized volleyball before so I could use some pointers regarding how they play. A valuable lesson was learned, not only about volleyball but also about being even more alert to how sneaky my Inherited Purpose can shape my life.