Time Out

It’s the last quarter of the big football game and your team is down by a few points. You line up to start a play, and just as you are getting set your coach calls a timeout.

In another situation, there are ten seconds left in the last quarter of the basketball game. Tensions are running high and the other team leads you by one point. You have the ball and start to drive it in...just as your coach calls a timeout.

We go throughout our lives living on a perpetual schedule. That schedule includes being born, learning, growing up, becoming independent just to become dependent again a few years later until, inevitably, our time runs out. The worst part? We can’t call a timeout during our lives like we can during sports. In sports, we can yell at the refs for a break where we re-hydrate, regroup, and come up with a new game plan. In life, not so much. It’s a different type of game plan when it comes to the real world; one that takes immense preparation and pre-planning, however, we can never truly factor in everything that will happen to us in our lives because there will always be something unexpected and we can’t just yell at the world for a break. So what can we do in order to be as prepared as we can for any curve ball that life throws at us?

Essentially, this preparation comes from the knowledge and skill we gain throughout our lives, but, then there’s the question of where do we gain those skills? For many, it may be sports. For me, it’s been a huge boiling mixture of experiences and organizations with FFA settling itself in the center. There is just something otherworldly whenever I put on the blue corduroy that symbolizes so much for hundreds of thousands of people across the nation and I am so glad that I got this experience before my time runs out.

This next year will be filled with many lasts as I conclude my junior year and begin to write the final chapter to my high school career. However, with my time in high school running out, there are so many other games to be played. The applying to college game, the interviewing for jobs game, and the ultimate game of life. The difference between me and other people, though, is that I have had the experience of FFA before that time comes. So before your time is out and the opportunity is lost, experience something new whether it be a different CDE in FFA or a completely new adventure that will help you realize who you are.

The clock winds down in the biggest football game of the year, your team snaps the ball and scores that touchdown for the win.

Your basketball team puts the ball in play and you drain the game winning shot.

You get into the college of your dreams, you get the job of your dreams, and you get the life of your dreams.

All before your time runs out.

Your North Central District Secretary,

Scuyler Zenger