VERTICAL

I used to want a vertical leap like Dee Brown’s. Oh wait, who remembers him? Seriously, I wanted a vertical like Giannis Antetokounmpo. I wanted to jump high, put plainly, to dunk with ease, to bounce off the bus ride. I wanted to have the kind of athleticism that responds on command whether you’ve been asleep for 8 hours or warm for 2. Ankle weights, jumping rope, plyometrics, bleacher sprints, etc. From the detrimental to the effective I tried it all. And why? Because comparison rules the airwaves.

There is a crazy amount of pressure to be like others in our society. We embrace such pressure and acquire an obsession for chasing after the wind. My vertical was an obsession when I should have been more focused on shooting off the dribble. In language everyone understands, I was so busy comparing myself in one area that I missed opportunities to develop others. But in all the pursuit of a stupid vertical leap, which I never even measured in 25 years of playing basketball, I find myself returning to the term.

Vertical is really not about jumping. It’s about keeping your thoughts elevated to the higher things – to God. At least this was my journey once basketball stopped being my idol. It means “not trippin'” over the small things, the trivial and the flat out disheartening. Vertical now means that when the seemingly unbearable floods life, a proper vertical will return you to life the way it was intended – free from fear that you’re not good enough, pretty enough and far enough along in your career. Vertical is not horizontal because horizontal steeps you in that maze race the rats hate so much. Horizontal obsessions can consume us because we’re always in a state of comparison not minding our own business. And no matter your station in life, you can rest assured that without a vertical that seeks to know truth you will live a counterfeit life. There’s something more. There’s absolutely more to life than our disappointments, failures and rejections. Eyes need to be up instead of looking to your left or right to compare yourself to others. By the time I dunked on the guy in the photo above, I knew this lesson. I could never be as good as some people at basketball but I could give my life to something bigger than myself when I trained and played. I guess I was right in high school. Vertical is everything!