“We will practice on the hottest day of the year, at high noon.”

This is what I recently told my 10 and 12 year old daughters. For some reason, this sort of unreasonableness has always been a source of pride. Whether late at night or early in the morning. In driving rain. Shoveling away snow and ice. Roasting in the sun on Summer’s dog day afternoons. To find the will to do the work—defiant to circumstances, yeah, that’s something to be proud of. To pay your dues when no one else cares enough, or dares enough, to do the same. That’s where you gain your edge. That’s why to this day, I don’t miss workouts. 

So whether it was in midnight talks with my late father, or later night inner dialogues in my own head, I was determined to do that extra to distinguish myself. I still am. And this imperative, whether they like it or not, is something I’m instilling in my offspring. 

So there we found ourselves, midday on June 24th, drenched in sweat, shooting midrange jump shots, as the temperature flirted with triple digits. I told my girls, “this what the greats do.” And that the reason they don’t know anyone else who is doing this right now, is because they “don’t know anyone who will ever be great.” And therein lies the key—that one must learn to love that pain and discomfort as a necessary byproduct of them reaching their potential and achieving their destiny. It is heady stuff for a young mind. Hell, it is still a lot for me to digest in my late forties. 

I told my girls about being a kid and visiting my aunts and grandmother in Northeast Pennsylvania. Where you’d bake on the blacktop without the minor relief of an Atlantic Ocean breeze. I felt enduring those conditions created better athletes, and growing stronger as I’d watch the competition wilt, made my confidence swell. There is tremendous power to be found in knowing that you made efforts and kept going and pushed yourself on the days when others more sensible stayed poolside in the shade. Like the son of Jor-El, I too get my power from the yellow sun.

As I relayed tales of adolescent aspiration to my profusely perspiring daughters, I had, as I often do in instances of physical exertion, a moment of clarity. A bizarre revelation. I realized, that the same sun whose rays beat down upon us on Tuesday, was the same sun I had once trained under decades ago. The same sun that I sweat and bled and laughed and cried under as a youngster, reddened my skin and that of my kids this past week.  The same sun where my father, and his father before him, once did the same. The same sun that grows the crops and illuminates the morning sky. One that shone down on the battlefields and ballparks of history—on the heroes and villains and every creature in between. 

In this new awareness, I have found profound strength and purpose. That a throughline runs between myself and all who have lived and died before me. We have all existed under the same blanket of light and warmth. Prince, president and private citizen—all children of the same sun. 

There is common ground to be found between you and every living being who ever set foot on this planet, with earth underneath your feet and the blue sky over your head. We all pray in our own way, to the burning orb in the heavens above. Beneath it, in the brief moments we are gifted in this realm, comes an opportunity. In the vastness of the galaxy, in the infinitum of humanity, in the breadth of history, one person seems insignificant—statistically non-existent. In understanding this fact comes freedom. 

Every icon you’ve idolized, every general leading an army’s charge, every king who has ever reigned, they all shared this same sun with you. Through grit and guts mere mortal men like us clawed their way to greatness, defying the impossible odds. They willed themselves above the crowd, above the clouds. Long before you were here and long after we are all long gone, that same sun will beam. So in the meantime, you might as well shine.