Enlightenment means different things to different people, but one common feature in many definitions is the dropping-away of conditioned thought. You can be enlightened by many different things in many different ways and situations. Everyone has their own experiences of beginning enlightened. Mine happens to be my life playing basketball. This is not just a sport to me it’s a lifestyle. It’s unbelieveable how many things it was made me realize, by not only growing on the court but growing in life. Basketball has taught me many life lessons and I’m so thankful that I’m able to do something I love everyday.

Throughout the years I have had many things happen to me that have been really hard to get through. My team throughout the years have always been there for me, I’ve never had to worry about not having someone to talk to or to not have a shoulder to cry on. My team is considered more than just teammates to me, they are family and I don’t know what I’d do without my girls and coaches. It feels great to know that I always have people there for me. Those girls would do anything for their team. They do things from giving me advice, to yelling at me to get better, To picking me up when I think I’ll never be able to walk again. My team is apart of my family, I have always heard the quote when your family becomes your friends, your friends become your family, and throughout my days of basketball I have came to realize this is the truth. I’m around my teammates more than I’m around my own family, they know things about me my own family doesn’t even know, and they’re not only their for me in my everyday life but they are their for me on the court. What I’m really trying to say is I got insight that family may or may not be the people who are there for you all the time, it could simply just be friends, but in my case teammates.
Many things have happened to my teammates over the years from break-ups, deaths of loved ones, to family issues. For some reason we always seek each other for help, because in my case I feel like they’re easier to relate to than anybody else is. It could be age or it could just be because we all have so much in common. It’s easy to tell them anything because you know you won’t be judged or bickered at.

One time at practice one of the girls came in bawling. Us being as protective asked what was going on? She then told us that her boyfriend has been cheating on her with another girl from our school. We were all so mad and upset to see her so hurt and broken. Her now ex-boyfriend came to the gym to talk to her, and we all stood around listening to his excuses, none of it added up. The girl then followed and showed us all the messages from him. She was so raging mad she went after him yelling and screaming, we all went and got her making sure nothing was took to far. She and he got their words across and went back up to the gym to get her calmed down. She talked to us about everything and every single girl in that gym was there for her. I know a lot of us couldn’t relate to what she was feeling, but we all saw the hurt in her eyes. Four years is a long time to just throw all away, and I know she was absolutely sick about everything that was going on in her life then. Although something bad like that happened it brought us together as a team, we then went on a winning streak, and played some of the best games we had played all year long. The bond us girls share is kind of unbelievable and it shows in the way we play. We are more than a team we are family.

In the novel Fahrenheit 451 Guy Montag started as a person of ignorance, but ended a man of enlightenment and intelligence. Montag embarked on his journey as a fireman who lived to burn and destroy books, but returned a crusader who lived to save them. At the beginning of the novel it says “It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists,