Post by Vincent Augustine on Jan 30, 2018 20:39:00 GMT -5
Two expressions come to mind when I think about what happened this last week. First is only through loss can we become stronger, and second is, you can’t win them all. These are expressions to make you feel better, to clear that pain you feel in your heart, but you and I both know the truth, there is no fixing the hole in your heart when it comes to the pain that a loss brings. One might think I was used to losing, given my meteoric rise in the industry over the last six years of my career. Reality is it never gets easy, you always second guess every decision you make.
Start with the idea to stop and have a few drinks, get drugged, and then abducted by some backwoods hillbilly’s. Was that a great decision in my life? Hell no it was dumb as hell, and in a way the events may have just taken me off my game enough to lose. Make no mistake about it, I lost. See in a triple threat match you cannot win, you know be the guy who is odd man out didn’t get the pin, or didn’t get pinned. Me, well I was the asshole on his back getting covered up, meaning I was the loser, and that hurts, hurts more than being the guy who didn’t win. Which leads us to this point in my life, the point we all dread, the moment we all have to face, what will we do when adversity rises up and punches us in the gut?
Over the years I have seen many of man come, lose, and then go. I have seen great men break over a loss, seen men lose more than a match, and seen them lose their minds. That has never been something that interests me. You see for me I truly see a loss as the opportunity to grow stronger, a way to learn, and most importantly a means to be better. That bitter taste in my mouth makes me sick, makes me want to spit it out in anger, and believe me now, the anger has grown. Let’s be honest for a moment, I came in, had two matches, won both, and then had the chance for the contender ship for the Alpha title, someone saw something in me, but maybe I wasn’t ready, or maybe I needed to be reminded how hard this all is. And so here we are, stuck in this existential crisis. What to do?
Reality for me set in when I turned around and saw the bottom of Charlie’s boot, time slowed in that moment, everything about it seemed surreal. Now I had heard stories of time slowing down, and people feeling completely helpless as the eventual reality of what was happening to them came to fruition, but this was the first time I had myself experienced it. And so it took place, the slow movement of my legs pushing me forward and the impending doom of the bottom of his boot. Part of me would love to tell you the impact hurt, but I didn’t feel it, the impending darkness of his boot filling my vision was ended by complete darkness and my waking to the bell ringing and Charlie’s hand high in victory.
There was a time when I would have told you that memory loss wasn’t a thing, but the more and more I experience, the more I realize it’s a reality, whether it be a negative moment like this, or a simple need to block out the pain of what happened. You could chalk this moment up to either or possibility. In that moment though, like every other lose I rolled out of the ring, caught my balance and stumbled away as the fans and Charlies soaked in the enjoyment of his win. Inside I knew what no one else knew, I had given my all and the loss hurt, it hurt bad.
Like every other loss in my career I stumbled through the curtains to the back and made my way to the locker room. Instant greetings from Henry only infuriated me, and George well just the sight of him made me mad. “It was so close.” Henry had chimed in at me, trying I think for a moment to console me but it wasn’t enough.
“So close? So fucking close?” I remember shaking my head before grabbing George’s luggage bag and flinging it across the locker room into a locker, the luggage bag springing open and spreading George’s clothes everywhere. “Maybe you were watching a different match than the one I was just losing in, but yeah, I fucking lost and close doesn’t mean shit when you lose. Who knows the guy that came in second at the Tour De France? No fucking body, that’s who!” Anger billowed from my voice as I yelled.
“To be fair Vincent, no one knows who fucking won.” Henry chimed in, his sarcastic undertone fueling my anger to another level.
“Who was second in the Tour De France in 2017? Rigoberto Uran!” George threw his two cents in. “Who won? Chris Froome.” My head lowered in sheer disappointment, the adrenaline already fleeting from my veins. George had the effect on me, his innocence, his response though so much like a smart ass was nothing more than a man simply responding to the question posed to the room, no realizing the anger, hate, and sarcasm that it came from.
For a fleeting moment the anger inside of me had fallen away, my head began to spin and I slipped down onto the bench in front of my locker. My head hung low, Henry was right, I was so close, the win within my grasp, and then the boot. Like a sick dream it had come flying back at my face, threatening to strike me with all the force it had first unleashed upon me, but this time it wasn’t real, and I could slow it down, avoid the inevitable crash it brought with it. Stopping it didn’t make things better, it only made it worse. My dreams for the next two nights were filled with that boot, I could count the ridges, I knew every square inch of it by Tuesday, and that’s when my mind finally shifted.
See there is always a period of time, I call it the down time, the moments when your mind is lost, when you dwell on the past, relive it in your dreams or nightmares. But after this down time comes the rebirth. Now make no mistake I am not reborn in the sense that I am a new man, but when it occurred Tuesday morning, it took Henry by surprise. We were sitting there on the porch, looking out over the fields of alfalfa on my parent’s old ranch in Northern California. The dew was still fresh, and the fog was clearing away, I gripped hard a cup of coffee and stared into the mist before me.
“I have some good news.” Henry broke the calm that had filled me and took the silence in the air away. “Vincent?” He probed me, his head now turned to look at me as I stared into the abyss before me. “Dammit Vincent snap out of this funk. I have good damn news for you and you are too fucking stubborn and upset over a loss to even listen to me.” Henry was on his feet and now blocking my view. “Fine take the opportunity you have against Singh and fuck it down the drain, I don’t care. If you want to be a mopey teenager then you can get your ass beat like a chess player fighting the state wrestling champion.”
“What if the chess player was a wrestler too? Would it be a close match then?” My sarcasm was not lost on him, as he threw his arms in the air and stormed off. “Oh come on Henry you know that was damn funny.” I was on my feet following Henry into the house.
“All this time I have been worried and there you were just playing games with me. How god damn long Vincent? How long?” I shook my head in response. “How god damn long?” henry yelled back.
“15 minutes?” I half questioningly responded.
“Dick.” Came his sharp reply, but he had come to a stop and sunk down onto the couch in the family room. “You have to take this opportunity seriously, and I mean seriously!” Henry replied, setting his cup down on the coaster before him on the coffee table.
“You mean I have to take a man who is world champion by stabbing a tag partner in the back seriously?” Truth was my mind was racing, trying to lock onto all things Stephen Singh, I was putting together a mental image of what I knew, and sadly, it wasn’t much, but there is a thing about knowledge, you can always gain more.
“It was damn effective, and don’t be modest, you would have done the same thing.” Henry replied retrieving his glass and taking as sip. “Besides, knowing when to seize the opportunity is almost as important as having the opportunity, and you of all people know that better.”
By this time I was pacing around the room. I had pulled my hair back into a pony tail and was still scanning my memory banks. “For sure.” I shot back quickly. “The guy is clearly smart, hell probably smarter than me, and not being modest, that’s a damn impressive thing.” My pacing picked up. “I need the cup.” Stopping hard as I said it, I turned to Henry. “Where is it?”
“Um…” He glanced around the room and then to the kitchen. “Dishwasher?” He shrugged and asked.
“What the fuck is it doing in the dishwasher?” At damn near a run I took off for the kitchen, dodging and end table and a bar stool pushed out from the counter. With haste I slung the dishwasher open to find it empty. “FUCK!” I yelled.
George came around the corner to greet me, smile on his face. “Something wrong boss? Seems like it!” He exclaimed.
“Can’t find THE CUP!” I yelled.
“Boss needs a cup? I have a cup.” George responded, holding up a coffee mug the words ‘It all adds up’ blasted on the side of it.
“That’s my cup!” I announced and took it from George, dumping the contents down the drain. Turing back around I saw the sad face on George. “Sorry, here have mine.” Less than a minute I returned with my cup of Coffee and provided it to George, his smug sad face turning to a grin again.
“Boss make George happy? Yes he did.” George replied as he went back down the hall.
“I am not your boss.” I tossed the words down the hall as George entered the last room on the right. Shaking my head I returned to the family room and sat on the oversized chair across from Henry. “Now that I have my thinking mug I can concentrate.” Henry just shook his head. “Look you know I think better with this mug, just holding it focuses my mind.” Henry just gave me that look you give someone when you are just going to placate their intricacies.
“There is a lot at stake here, a win…” Raising my hand I cut Henry off.
“A win doesn’t mean anything inherently. It is how I win that matters.” My mind was already racing, envisioning the win, the idea of how beating Singh could be maximized to make my career that much better. “It’s not enough to pin him, a man like Singh doesn’t like to quit, won’t want to give up.” A sick smile crossed my face. “I have to make him tap, have to make him basically tell the world I am the better man, that is how a match like this helps my career.”
“Yeah but a loss…” Once more I cut Henry off, this time with a swipe of my hand in the air.
“No, a loss doesn’t help me at all. You know what they say Henry about people who always lose?” Henry shook his head in response to the question. “They say you are a loser, and I for one don’t want to be a loser. Do you want me to be a loser Henry?” He shook his head again. “Good, so then we have to focus on the win, have to decide what to do don’t we?” He nodded in agreement, then it is time to go to work, it’s time to watch the tape and time to find the way to get him into the sum of all parts.”
“But…” Another wave of the hand and I cut him off.
“Look, I already have lost once; I don’t want to set a precedence here that is negative. So let’s get the information and take the fire in my gut from the loss and turn it into a win. Let’s take that information we get and make a plan, figure out the way to win, and in the end, it will all add up to me with my hand in the air in victory.” I’d love to tell you what came next, but then that’s a story for another time, something for you to experience on your own. Just remember my parting words; failure is simply an opportunity to make you stronger. Until next time, you may know the parts but do you know the sum?
Start with the idea to stop and have a few drinks, get drugged, and then abducted by some backwoods hillbilly’s. Was that a great decision in my life? Hell no it was dumb as hell, and in a way the events may have just taken me off my game enough to lose. Make no mistake about it, I lost. See in a triple threat match you cannot win, you know be the guy who is odd man out didn’t get the pin, or didn’t get pinned. Me, well I was the asshole on his back getting covered up, meaning I was the loser, and that hurts, hurts more than being the guy who didn’t win. Which leads us to this point in my life, the point we all dread, the moment we all have to face, what will we do when adversity rises up and punches us in the gut?
Over the years I have seen many of man come, lose, and then go. I have seen great men break over a loss, seen men lose more than a match, and seen them lose their minds. That has never been something that interests me. You see for me I truly see a loss as the opportunity to grow stronger, a way to learn, and most importantly a means to be better. That bitter taste in my mouth makes me sick, makes me want to spit it out in anger, and believe me now, the anger has grown. Let’s be honest for a moment, I came in, had two matches, won both, and then had the chance for the contender ship for the Alpha title, someone saw something in me, but maybe I wasn’t ready, or maybe I needed to be reminded how hard this all is. And so here we are, stuck in this existential crisis. What to do?
Reality for me set in when I turned around and saw the bottom of Charlie’s boot, time slowed in that moment, everything about it seemed surreal. Now I had heard stories of time slowing down, and people feeling completely helpless as the eventual reality of what was happening to them came to fruition, but this was the first time I had myself experienced it. And so it took place, the slow movement of my legs pushing me forward and the impending doom of the bottom of his boot. Part of me would love to tell you the impact hurt, but I didn’t feel it, the impending darkness of his boot filling my vision was ended by complete darkness and my waking to the bell ringing and Charlie’s hand high in victory.
There was a time when I would have told you that memory loss wasn’t a thing, but the more and more I experience, the more I realize it’s a reality, whether it be a negative moment like this, or a simple need to block out the pain of what happened. You could chalk this moment up to either or possibility. In that moment though, like every other lose I rolled out of the ring, caught my balance and stumbled away as the fans and Charlies soaked in the enjoyment of his win. Inside I knew what no one else knew, I had given my all and the loss hurt, it hurt bad.
Like every other loss in my career I stumbled through the curtains to the back and made my way to the locker room. Instant greetings from Henry only infuriated me, and George well just the sight of him made me mad. “It was so close.” Henry had chimed in at me, trying I think for a moment to console me but it wasn’t enough.
“So close? So fucking close?” I remember shaking my head before grabbing George’s luggage bag and flinging it across the locker room into a locker, the luggage bag springing open and spreading George’s clothes everywhere. “Maybe you were watching a different match than the one I was just losing in, but yeah, I fucking lost and close doesn’t mean shit when you lose. Who knows the guy that came in second at the Tour De France? No fucking body, that’s who!” Anger billowed from my voice as I yelled.
“To be fair Vincent, no one knows who fucking won.” Henry chimed in, his sarcastic undertone fueling my anger to another level.
“Who was second in the Tour De France in 2017? Rigoberto Uran!” George threw his two cents in. “Who won? Chris Froome.” My head lowered in sheer disappointment, the adrenaline already fleeting from my veins. George had the effect on me, his innocence, his response though so much like a smart ass was nothing more than a man simply responding to the question posed to the room, no realizing the anger, hate, and sarcasm that it came from.
For a fleeting moment the anger inside of me had fallen away, my head began to spin and I slipped down onto the bench in front of my locker. My head hung low, Henry was right, I was so close, the win within my grasp, and then the boot. Like a sick dream it had come flying back at my face, threatening to strike me with all the force it had first unleashed upon me, but this time it wasn’t real, and I could slow it down, avoid the inevitable crash it brought with it. Stopping it didn’t make things better, it only made it worse. My dreams for the next two nights were filled with that boot, I could count the ridges, I knew every square inch of it by Tuesday, and that’s when my mind finally shifted.
See there is always a period of time, I call it the down time, the moments when your mind is lost, when you dwell on the past, relive it in your dreams or nightmares. But after this down time comes the rebirth. Now make no mistake I am not reborn in the sense that I am a new man, but when it occurred Tuesday morning, it took Henry by surprise. We were sitting there on the porch, looking out over the fields of alfalfa on my parent’s old ranch in Northern California. The dew was still fresh, and the fog was clearing away, I gripped hard a cup of coffee and stared into the mist before me.
“I have some good news.” Henry broke the calm that had filled me and took the silence in the air away. “Vincent?” He probed me, his head now turned to look at me as I stared into the abyss before me. “Dammit Vincent snap out of this funk. I have good damn news for you and you are too fucking stubborn and upset over a loss to even listen to me.” Henry was on his feet and now blocking my view. “Fine take the opportunity you have against Singh and fuck it down the drain, I don’t care. If you want to be a mopey teenager then you can get your ass beat like a chess player fighting the state wrestling champion.”
“What if the chess player was a wrestler too? Would it be a close match then?” My sarcasm was not lost on him, as he threw his arms in the air and stormed off. “Oh come on Henry you know that was damn funny.” I was on my feet following Henry into the house.
“All this time I have been worried and there you were just playing games with me. How god damn long Vincent? How long?” I shook my head in response. “How god damn long?” henry yelled back.
“15 minutes?” I half questioningly responded.
“Dick.” Came his sharp reply, but he had come to a stop and sunk down onto the couch in the family room. “You have to take this opportunity seriously, and I mean seriously!” Henry replied, setting his cup down on the coaster before him on the coffee table.
“You mean I have to take a man who is world champion by stabbing a tag partner in the back seriously?” Truth was my mind was racing, trying to lock onto all things Stephen Singh, I was putting together a mental image of what I knew, and sadly, it wasn’t much, but there is a thing about knowledge, you can always gain more.
“It was damn effective, and don’t be modest, you would have done the same thing.” Henry replied retrieving his glass and taking as sip. “Besides, knowing when to seize the opportunity is almost as important as having the opportunity, and you of all people know that better.”
By this time I was pacing around the room. I had pulled my hair back into a pony tail and was still scanning my memory banks. “For sure.” I shot back quickly. “The guy is clearly smart, hell probably smarter than me, and not being modest, that’s a damn impressive thing.” My pacing picked up. “I need the cup.” Stopping hard as I said it, I turned to Henry. “Where is it?”
“Um…” He glanced around the room and then to the kitchen. “Dishwasher?” He shrugged and asked.
“What the fuck is it doing in the dishwasher?” At damn near a run I took off for the kitchen, dodging and end table and a bar stool pushed out from the counter. With haste I slung the dishwasher open to find it empty. “FUCK!” I yelled.
George came around the corner to greet me, smile on his face. “Something wrong boss? Seems like it!” He exclaimed.
“Can’t find THE CUP!” I yelled.
“Boss needs a cup? I have a cup.” George responded, holding up a coffee mug the words ‘It all adds up’ blasted on the side of it.
“That’s my cup!” I announced and took it from George, dumping the contents down the drain. Turing back around I saw the sad face on George. “Sorry, here have mine.” Less than a minute I returned with my cup of Coffee and provided it to George, his smug sad face turning to a grin again.
“Boss make George happy? Yes he did.” George replied as he went back down the hall.
“I am not your boss.” I tossed the words down the hall as George entered the last room on the right. Shaking my head I returned to the family room and sat on the oversized chair across from Henry. “Now that I have my thinking mug I can concentrate.” Henry just shook his head. “Look you know I think better with this mug, just holding it focuses my mind.” Henry just gave me that look you give someone when you are just going to placate their intricacies.
“There is a lot at stake here, a win…” Raising my hand I cut Henry off.
“A win doesn’t mean anything inherently. It is how I win that matters.” My mind was already racing, envisioning the win, the idea of how beating Singh could be maximized to make my career that much better. “It’s not enough to pin him, a man like Singh doesn’t like to quit, won’t want to give up.” A sick smile crossed my face. “I have to make him tap, have to make him basically tell the world I am the better man, that is how a match like this helps my career.”
“Yeah but a loss…” Once more I cut Henry off, this time with a swipe of my hand in the air.
“No, a loss doesn’t help me at all. You know what they say Henry about people who always lose?” Henry shook his head in response to the question. “They say you are a loser, and I for one don’t want to be a loser. Do you want me to be a loser Henry?” He shook his head again. “Good, so then we have to focus on the win, have to decide what to do don’t we?” He nodded in agreement, then it is time to go to work, it’s time to watch the tape and time to find the way to get him into the sum of all parts.”
“But…” Another wave of the hand and I cut him off.
“Look, I already have lost once; I don’t want to set a precedence here that is negative. So let’s get the information and take the fire in my gut from the loss and turn it into a win. Let’s take that information we get and make a plan, figure out the way to win, and in the end, it will all add up to me with my hand in the air in victory.” I’d love to tell you what came next, but then that’s a story for another time, something for you to experience on your own. Just remember my parting words; failure is simply an opportunity to make you stronger. Until next time, you may know the parts but do you know the sum?