One of the guiding principles in mastership of any sport, art, or spiritual endeavor can be summed up in the words, Be the Best You Can. We live in a culture of striving, often believing that the best we can be involves some sort of superhuman effort or achievement. Yet the story of a high school wrestler who surrendered a match he could have won stunningly clarifies what this principle looks like in action. Marek Bush is one unusual teenager, and this is his humble, heart-opening choice.
As a sophomore and champion wrestler from Utica, New York, with yet another state championship on the line, Marek faced his rival on the mat. He’d practiced hard, and he wanted to beat his opponent, Logan Patterson.
But when Logan badly injured his elbow in the last 30 seconds of the match, an extraordinary spiritual opportunity unfolded. Marek had been losing up to this point. All he had to do to win the championship was pin his compromised competitor. Instead, after telling his coach I got this, he went back in—and did nothing. He surrendered, allowing his opponent to win the match. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marek-bush-champion-high-school-wrestler-surrenders-a-match-he-could-have-won/
The video shows fans on their feet and in tears. The subsequent interviews crack open the heart. Marek assumes his choice would make him look kind of like a weakling, but that’s all right, he says. The referee’s voice cracks as he shares that he’s never seen anything like it, and that Marek is no weakling at all. State championships come and go, he says, but that—you can’t take that away from a kid. Marek’s father is the most overcome with emotion. When the reporter asks if he’s proud, he quickly answers, very proud. He must have passed along his own values to his son. As he puts it, Winning isn’t everything, it’s about doing what’s right. And he did.
Even the reporter highlights what he saw as the most important element of this story—that Marek thought his choice would make him look weak, and he did it anyway.
Everyone takes away something a little different from this story. I’m seeing a key to mastership with greater clarity. Being the best we can means following our heart and acting courageously upon what we know to be true no matter what appears in the outside world. In each experience, the choice is ours. And even when we’re wrestling with the world, there’s always that one defining moment—that opportunity to tune in to our highest self and surrender to what’s most true. Love is always a choice.