Embrace the Shades of Gray

Much of our society revolves around absolute questions of yes or no or either or, but most of the beauty of the world does not reside in colors of black or white. Believe me yes or no has its place; no computer would be possible without binary code. However, most of the beauty of the world resides in the seven billion shades of gray that are between white and black.

Most of the time absolutes like black or white are easiest to deal with, but usually the easy solution is not the best solution. It is easiest to cut something out of your life or fully accept an idea, but comprise, subtlety and openness to new possibilities are wonderful tools of the universe and mankind.

I have been thinking about the shades of gray for a couple months now, but watching one of my favorite shows in the wee hours of the morning brought me to the point where I had to write about the shades of gray today.

One of my favorite television shows is Friday Night Lights. It tells the story of a small Texas town where life begins and ends with football, however the show does a beautiful job of portraying tales of life and simply uses football and what surrounds it as a backdrop.

In the most recent episode I have seen, the head coach is having a real dilemma on who to start at quarterback. His two choices are the senior Matt, with vast experience and knowledge or the young gun freshman JD, who has some of the best raw talent he has ever seen. He does not want to crush his incumbent senior by benching him in the middle of his last season, but he also does not want to throw his young freshman into the fire before he is ready. As far as conventional football wisdom goes he has to pick one player or the other. However Coach Taylor creates a beautiful new shade of gray!

He decides that his two quarterbacks will alternate offensive series. His senior quarterback will run the I formation where knowledge and poise are paramount while his freshman will run the spread offense where his athleticism will shine through.

This is such an unorthodox strategy any opposing defense won’t know what hit them. Coach Taylor opens the door for new possibilities because he was willing to make the most of his resources and he had little care for what conventional wisdom says.

Have the courage to make your own shade of gray each and everyday! Decisions have to be made where yes or no questions have to be answered, but you do not have to hold on to that for every question.

Do what you want to do, be who you want to be and follow your dreams! Recognize the beauty in each shade of gray and realize we can paint more beautiful paintings in life when we have more shades of paint to choose from!

Thanks for reading
Chris