Fantasy Football and Life

I haven’t followed the NFL for years. I used to play fantasy football, but at some point I stopped — partly because I wasn’t keeping up with the games, partly because my attention moved elsewhere.

This year, though, a friend asked me to join their league. They wanted a complete roster, and I said fine. I didn’t pick players, didn’t strategize — I just hit auto-draft.

Last night, I was predicted to lose my match. Everything pointed that way. But in the final minutes, one of my running backs put up a big score. Suddenly, I had won by three points.

I didn’t plan it. I didn’t control it. It happened.

And isn’t that the “fantasy” of fantasy football — that we think we’re managing, choosing, making things happen, when in truth so much lies outside our hands? Someone else’s play, someone else’s injury, even someone else’s mistake becomes the difference between our win and our loss.

Life isn’t so different. We set intentions, we take actions — but outcomes often hinge on things far beyond our choosing. Ramana Maharshi reminds us: I am not the doer. What unfolds is by the Lord’s grace, not by my cleverness.

Maybe fantasy football is a reminder: sometimes you win not because you played better, but because something shifted beyond your control. Sometimes you lose the same way. The real play, then, is to meet both with equanimity.