Being handed a weapon I've never used before, in a crowd, surrounded by professionals and/or people who know what the fuck they're doing, and as opposed to looking like a pussy, blowing the fucking doors off and making everyone there recognize my powers of death? And the reverse, getting challenged to a fistfight (in front of my girlfriend, which I grant you I neglected to mention, so my goddamn manhood was on the line) and beating the shit out of the guy. Is it 4 touchdowns in a single game? No, but in the context of my life, those were great moments with a strong possibility of abject failure. What was yours?
I'm Mr. Clutch when it comes to sports. Most sports I'm slightly above average when it comes to regular season, but when playoffs show up, you better believe I'm one of the best players on the team. In hockey, I'd say the teams I played on played in around 12 OT games in total, and I'd say in those 12 games, I scored the winner 9. Main one I remember would be 2 years ago, we're playing in the playoffs for the 'B' final and it's the second game of the series. We lost the first one in unremarkable fashion, and I was actually playing pretty average. The game goes into OT and all of a sudden I just feel it. I tell the two guys on my line that I'm getting the puck and I'm scoring. First shift into OT, there's a weird scramble on the blue line and I somehow sneak the puck out of it and end up with a breakaway and of course score. Those just feel great. We ended up losing the series though because of bull fucking shit reffing. We were down 1-0 the next game with like 5 minutes left to go and I snipe one off the post and it goes in, but the goalie catches it while it's in the net but the ref decided it wasn't a goal. I was not amused. Curling, my team was up by one, but the other team had 3 counting and didn't have the hammer. My last shot, I draw within a foot to the button between two rocks that were maybe a rock and half width apart. Beauty. It was the shot that won the A final for us. Basketball we're playing in districts to go to regionals. We're up by maybe one or two when I decide it's time to go on fire. First I get a steal and make an easy layup. Then I drive it and get the most unreal and one ever; I basically was pushed in the middle of a shot from the back and make the shot while I was parallel to the ground. Next time we're in their half, I rain a three. That pretty much put the game away.
Did you seriously just brag about being "Mr. Clutch" in...curling? Shit. You must be a human highlight reel when it comes to horseshoes and tiddlywinks. I could see hockey and basketball but come on.
Oh I don't have one, I just had to snipe at you because I'm insanely jealous. Being honest if you had written your first post like this one I wouldn't have felt the need. So you know, food for thought.
I'm an American working at a university in Japan. I've had two recent "dare to be great" moments. The first involved giving an hour long academic presentation in Japanese. Like most of the Japanese presenters, I just read from my notes. But it went well enough that I could walk away without shame. Much better on the "dare to be great" scale, however, involved an instinctive reaction to a sudden emergency. A girl in my class asked to be excused because she felt ill. On her way to the door, I noticed she didn't seem all there. As I started to walk over to ask if she was going to be o.k., she fainted and I just managed to lunge over and get my hand between her head and the floor as she fell. I then dispatched other students as "runners" to get emergency assistance and another to get water as she regained consciousness. For a few fleeting moments, I felt like Superman.