“Watch this!” I shouted as I stepped to the edge of the bridge.

~~~~~~~~~~

Boom! . . . Boom! . . . Boom! . . . After a few more forceful thuds reverberated throughout the house, my mom peeked her head in my bedroom to discover her 17-year-old son practicing backflips on the mattress I had pulled off the bed onto the floor.

~~~~~~~~~~

With a sympathetic look, the doctor told me, “If you don’t quit playing football and stop lifting weights as heavy as you do, you’re gonna have plastic knees by the time you’re thirty.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Moments before getting under the loaded-down weight bar holding more than twice my body weight, one of the ‘old-timers’ in the gym approached me with a fatherly concern. “You better ease up on all that weight you’re always lifting. It’s gonna catch up with you one day.”

I laughed. “I’m gonna keep doing this so it doesn’t.”

~~~~~~~~~~

When we don’t know any better, we are a potential danger to ourselves.

When we don’t know any better but have the absolute confidence that we do, we are a danger to ourselves and everyone else.

Throughout my life, I have received all sorts of feedback from countless friends, family members, doctors, nurses, teachers, coaches, girlfriends, pastors, police officers, pedestrians, angry drivers, teammates, opponents, and other rando’s. As I finished this morning's stretch session, I reflected on all the feedback my body has given me over the years. My final thought before writing: “I wish I would have listened a whole lot more.”