Our oldest had a bit of a setback recently. He’d be enjoying his first year of college and doing all the things: classes, new friends, etc. During his second intramural’s flag football game, an old injury decided to rear its head again. The result: another torn ACL.

Five weeks into this new and, up to this point, meaningful (and fun) experience of college, all had gone about as well as could be expected. Now, rather than running around, he’ll be crutching around. Rather than playing 3on3 basketball, he’ll be coaching. Instead of running to class, he’ll be hailing the golf cart assistance team.

This is not what he wanted. And, it happened. Thankfully, he’s already been through it once and knows the routine. While the family was trying to help, I read something that focused on one word:

Despite

The definition of the word is ‘without being affected.’ In Cole3’s situation, he’d use it as ‘I’m going make a bunch of new connections despite not being able to play sports.’ Or, ‘I’m going to make it to class on time despite having to use my crutches or the golf cart crew.’

In each of these situations, he’s got a goal. In each, he’s also got a challenge: he almost always makes friends through sports in the first situation and can’t move very well in the second. He’s decided, though that despite the challenge, he’s going to overcome.

Will he do it? I hope so. But that will be up to him. (He’s off to a great start, though!)

What’s Your ‘Despite?’

When we started at Weequahic, we didn’t have many campers. We wanted to make sure those who were with us had a blast despite not having leagues or many campers in their age groups.

A lot of our new campers arrive without knowing anyone. They decided to have a great time despite being nervous about this new experience. (And they crush it!)

We all have situations that are challenging in all of our phases of live. Those give us the opportunity to use ‘despite’ in really productive ways. So, what’s your ‘despite’ going to be?

Have a great weekend!

PS…

It can go the other way. He failed his class despite having a lot of teacher support. She continued foul the other player despite the coaches and refs talking with her about it. Cole keeps eating cookies despite knowing the fourth and fifth ones are not good for him.

Maybe you have a habit that negatively affects you. You can turn it around – I know you can! Despite only being around our campers and staff for a few weeks a year, I know our Weequahic can do anything they put their minds to!