Tackling cancer

Football season is in full swing and so naturally I'm interested in applying football metaphors to our situation. About a month ago, the kicker for my favorite football team gave some tackling advice on Twitter. He wrote:

Tackling is mostly about desire. If you want to tackle & aren't afraid you will usually be pretty good. If you are hesitant you will stink.

The night before he landed a pretty good tackle on a kick return (an unusual event for a kicker). The advice stuck with me because it seems so simple and intuitive, yet if you don't truly desire to tackle and are in a situation where you need to tackle, bad things are probably going to happen. Kickers, quarterbacks, punters and other players not used to tackling often get hurt (or at the very least, miss) when trying to tackle. From a purely technical standpoint, these players fail at tackling for any number of reasons: their feet and body are not properly positioned, they took an incorrect angle to the point of tackle, they attempted the tackle with their arms rather than their bodies, and so on. And the players who do not normally need to tackle will likely think about these things (if very briefly) when the next need arises to tackle an opposing player.

But it turns out the technical aspects of tackling are nearly inconsequential compared to something as intangible and unteachable as desire. The kicker above doesn't tell us why this is (it is a "tweet" after all), but we can speculate. I think it's because tackling is one of those events in which most rational, well-adjusted people would avoid if possible. On the football field, of course, it makes sense to tackle the opposing player with the ball, but even here, who wouldn't prefer for that opposing player to fall to the ground on his own or run out of bounds? Only the most aggressive, testosterone-filled meatheads, for sure. For the rest of us, we would go ahead and tackle, because that is our role-related duty. But we would do so hesitantly. And the bigger and badder the opponent, the more hesitant we are.

I think this is the common way to tackle most non-football opponents as well. We go ahead and tackle our opponents, for sure. We work the extra hours; we endure the prodding and poking; we forgo what others partake freely in; we do all manner of things to "tackle" our life "opponents." And we might be technically proficient at it as well. But how often do we do it with hesitation, half-heartedness, self-pity, or resignation? I won't tell you what my ratio is. But I will say that this advice--that successful tackling is mostly about desire--seems right on to me.

In the most difficult moments, when I view SB's cancer as an opponent, and I embrace our antagonistic relationship, I find myself diving into our problems with a slightly crazy joy. It's a joy that seems sociopathic when an NFL linebacker leaps up from a vicious tackle and celebrates with abandon. Sure, it's mindless violence; but it's also an energizing metaphor for how to crash headfirst into life's ugliness.