When I played in Montenegro, there was a rift between team management (who made the executive decision to sign me -- without consulting...) and the coach. The coach exacted his "revenge" by keeping me on the bench a lot, since he was in charge of the playing time and all. If I came in the game and missed one shot, I'd get pulled back out of the game and the coach would justify it by pointing to my missed shot.

Did I mention that the coach didn't speak English and I didn't speak Montenegrin?

I would converse with the coach after practice through a teammate interpreter who was obviously peeved with this job, being that I'm not one to let a brief explanation of someone's actions go without pressing for better answers. Naturally, some days I would return to my flat (that's what Europeans call our version of apartments) pissed off and really annoyed with the situation.

Then I would take a nap, wake up and look out the window at the Adriatic Sea. Then I'd walk through town and notice all the people gawking at me and the women smiling and the kids waving, and realize I was doing something that most people I knew would never experience. The on-court situation was really grinding on me, but what exactly did I have to complain about?

If you're reading this, you have Wi-Fi and a computer or phone or tablet -- many of you have two or all three of those. For Americans especially, 95% of the world lives on about 10% of what you have in material resources (food, clothing, shelter, money). None of us chose to be born here or now. We are all so extremely lucky for the circumstances that we did nothing to create. Being so close to the situation -- and so far removed from seeing how the majority of the world lives -- we lose sight of that.


But if you can read and log onto the internet and have the leisure time to peruse Facebook, you have nothing to complain about.