Friday night I watched a documentary about Kobe Bryant that made me question if we’re remembered more for our triumphs or our mistakes. Bryant was arguably one of the greatest basketball players of all time. He won five NBA championships, was an 18-time All Star, 4 time All Star MVP, a 15 time member of the All NBA team, 2008’s NBA most valuable player, a two time NBA finals MVP, and a two time scoring champion. Post his NBA career he went on to win an Oscar for his short film, Dear Basketball. And despite all these achievements, the public never forgot a mistake he made in a Colorado hotel room in 2003. I do not excuse what he did. His actions forever changed the victim’s life and I wonder if she ever recovered from the incident or the media scrutiny. What I am interested in questioning in light of his success and mistake is this: should he be defined by that mistake? Should one poor decision skew a person’s legacy?

I had these questions as I reflected upon the documentary because of how Bryant responded to his mistake, and because of his subsequent transformation. He exercised remorse in writing the young woman he impacted an apology letter acknowledging what he did and how she felt. He also seemed to feel guilt. He expressed not being able to escape negative energy surrounding himself so he decided to create an alternate persona called the Black Mamba to channel that energy into a force of good on the basketball court.

Should we be defined by our mistakes? Do we want others to define us by our bad decisions? I had to make these questions personal and apply them to myself.

I am not a celebrity, and I thank God I am not famous. I have certainly made mistakes in my life; done things I am not proud of. I know I am not who I was before because of those mistakes, and I am grateful that the people in my life who were impacted by my choices chose to forgive me. I don’t want my legacy to be a poor choice I made. I want my legacy to be how I responded to adversity and setbacks.

As I write this post I’m realizing we are often afraid to share our mistakes with others for fear of how we’ll be perceived moving forward. We wonder if they’ll see our goodness anymore now that they know about this one shameful thing we did. So we keep these things to ourselves, carry the burden alone. The fear of how we will be perceived is just too great. I have come to realize that one bad move in life can really affect how others view your legacy. It’s sad that the bad things we do often outweigh the good in the court of public opinion. It ought to be what we do next that matters more.

In 2010 Marvin Sapp released a song called “The Best in Me.” It’s an inspirational song about the Lord seeing our most desirable qualities when all anyone else can see are the worst parts of who we are. I’ve included an excerpt of the song below.

He saw the best in me
When everyone else around
Could only see the worst in me
I wish I had a witness tonight

When folks wrote you off
Said you would never make it
What did he see?
He saw the best in me

When everyone else around me
When everyone else around
Could only see the worst in me
Can I tell you all one more thing?
I just need to tell you one more thing
Listen to this

See, He's mine, and I am His
It doesn't matter what I did
He only sees me for who I am

I thank God that he sees my good, when all everyone else seems to see is that one silly choice I made without thinking about the consequences. One of my favorite Bible verses is in I Samuel 16:7 when the Lord sends his prophet Samuel to find the nation of Israel’s new King, David. He tells Samuel,

“Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

I Samuel 16:7, The Bible

It’s my favorite verse because it reminds me that the Lord is not interested in superficial things like our physical appearance or how people and events appear on the outside. The Lord cares about who we really are, how we think, the desires of our hearts. Those are the substantial things that make up a person. Our hearts ought to be our legacies, not a poor decision.

A final thought I’d like to leave you with is from one of my favorite lessons when I was an English teacher. I loved teaching students about character development. It was one of my favorite concepts to teach because the real world application was crystal clear.

“Characters are like people. To understand a character you must understand that they are complex, multifaceted. When I say multifaceted I mean that they are made up of many different parts. Just like people, no character is all good and no character is all bad. No one behaves the same way all the time. No one. If you change the character’s context, you’ll see the character behave differently. Just like people. Change our location. Change the people we hang out with. You’ll see the person’s behavior change. You’ll see them adapt to the situation or people around them. Knowing this to read well you must learn to suspend judgment. I’d argue to be a good human being you also have to suspend judgment. Instead of judging the character (or the person) for that really dumb decision, learn to ask: “Why is this character (or person) behaving this way?” Ask yourself, “What prompts this behavior?” After answering those questions further ask, “How did the character choose to respond?” If you ask those questions, you will often find the message you were supposed to learn from the character’s journey. You can apply this message to your own life.”

Conclusion

In closing, watching The Making of a Legend documentary inspired me to think about how I want to be remembered when I die. When I die I hope people remember the good things I did far more than they remember my mistakes. I hope my life encourages others to acknowledge their mistakes, learn from them, and use them to fuel their next move.

Don’t let the mistake define you. Use it to spur transformation into the wonderful person God designed you to be. He sees the best in us. Strive to be the best parts of you no matter what.

Until next time,

Jeanine

P.S. If you’ve been following along I promised to start discussing some of the mistakes I’ve made along the way in my year off from work. Those posts are coming, I promise! Along with things that I got right of course! This documentary just inspired me and I had to write about it! If you haven’t watched it, I highly recommend it! Lots of lessons to be learned from how Kobe responded to adversity and setbacks!