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HappyWisdom - Episode III - Why Sports Matter and why IQ doesn't

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HW - Section I -  Sports-  Why Do They Matter? 

Why is Russell crying?

Why indeed is he ?  Bigger question, why was I crying right along side of him?  Why was my wife running around the living room screaming along with my sons?  Why was all of Seattle riveted to the screen while this man and his team came back from impossible odds to win it the NFC Championship?


Sports are of course a metaphor for life.  We will cheer for the team and the men that wear those uniforms almost regardless of who they are.  We hope that they're good people, and with folks like Russ we know that he's a good guy and we worry about him staying that way when the really BIG money comes his way. 

Mostly we'll cheer our team, but weep for them? 

Here are the three reasons we wept last Sunday like a baby: 

1. We've all had days like that day
To refresh your memory, Russ hadn't thrown many interceptions all year.  In that game - four.  Kearse played like a middle schooler with mittens on.  They quoted Kearse later, as he was thinking to himself, "what is going on??"
 There was element of surprise in the whole thing that also ramped up the emotion

Tell me you haven't had a day where you loose the keys, drop your coffee, and then back into a pole?  That sort of thing, but 100,000 people are watching you do it.   


2.  Overcoming Impossible Odds
Normally this sort of thing is left to Hollywood.  But there was no Hollywood here.   Indeed, I don't think I would have been able to suspend belief long enough to buy the Hawks improbable come back.   I've read since then it stood at 2%.     A guy in the Seattle Times played a recreation of it in Madden 15, the video game that is closer these days to a simulation.  It took him eighteen times to get it close.  (Ed note: my ten-year old almost did it in two). 

We all want this to be true.  In a way we're all hoping for the impossible in our lives.  That someone we love will be healed, that we will find financial security, that we can attain our most distant dream.  Miracles, when you see them, are emotional. 

3.  We are them
But still I'm not able to recall getting that emotional over a game for a while.  I think ultimately you really have to relate to the players involved. You have to see yourself in them and you have to feel their growing frustration.  What I realized last Sunday is that I'm bonding in a way with Russell Wilson and Pete and Marshawn and even Kam in a way that I haven't with a team for a while.  I actually care for these fellows.  I see elements of my own kids out there, struggling. I see a man of my same faith out there fighting. I see prayer answered, and while I agree generally that God doesn't take sides in football matches, its hard not to see God wearing blue and green last week. 

I think that's it really, that sports mirror our lives, and the better that mirror is, the more clearly we can see ourselves in it, the more it matters.  But when we win it all next week against the Patriots (23-20 Hawks)  I probably won't cry.  I'll be happy and smile and stuff , but the reflection starts to fade. The mirage that we are them evaporates and the end of the game I'll be an IT Project Manager and Russell will be the QB for a SuperBowl winning team twice in a row.   Before he's even twenty-seven years old.  A previous version of me would cry about the disparity of our lives, but not now.  I'm happy where I'm at, and I'm happy where they're at. I'm mostly happy that I can relate to these guys in a way that I might not be able to with other teams, and that this team can still make me feel that anything is possible. 

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 HW - Section II -  Science -   Your IQ is not the problem


HappyWisdom is all about applying wisdom to your life to make it a happier experience.  Nothing is more demotivating than feeling that you simply don't have the intelligence to do something, and Math is one of those things.  Good news wannabe Mathletes - all you need is motivation:

“It’s not how smart we are; it’s how motivated we are and how effectively we study that determines growth in math achievement over time,” says Kou Murayama, a post-doctoral psychology researcher at University of California Los Angeles and lead author of the study published in the journal Child Development."


So there you have it!  You too can be good at math. There are so many online resources now, including the Ivy league guys, so there's no excuse.  


IQ can predict a narrow range of abilites, such as abstract reasioning skills, but its not generally a good predictor for success, either, according to a recent longitudinal study. 

Studies at the University of Pennsylvania have found that students who don't have the highest IQs in their class but get high grades share an attitude called “grit.” They keep plugging away despite any setbacks or failures.


So this is consistent the mission of Happy Wisdom - finding pearls of thoughts that put the onus back on us. Empower us as humans to see that we are fully capable of reaching our dreams. Whether you want to be Russell Wilson or Richard Feynman, it is going to take work. So pick a path as fast as you can and get to it!




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II- http://healthland.time.com/2012/12/26/motivation-not-iq-matters-most-for-learning-new-math-skills/
-  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140717120528-117825785-what-predicts-success-it-s-not-your-iq?trk=mp-edit-rr-posts



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