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Silvio Castelletti's avatar

Another excellent piece, Grace. I've written these thoughts on Notes but I'll re-write them here. I learned the hard way myself that if there’s anything taking up so much space in your identity, when for whatever reason it vanishes (and life teaches us that pretty much everything, sooner or later, ends), you feel lost and start questioning who you really are. This may be a job or a strong passion or a sport (as in your story). It’s hard to understand this early on in life, but as time goes by you start noticing that the less you allow into the definition of who you are, the stronger your identity becomes. Sounds paradoxical, but that’s what really happens. As you beautifully say in this piece, you should never lose sight of the fact that you always have a choice. You can choose what to let into your identity, and you can choose how to react when something major disappears from your identity.

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Arman Khodadoost's avatar

As a fellow former basketball player this one hit home. And although Im sure you were a solid player, you were meant to write. So thank you for ending your basketball career to focus on sharing your experience with us instead 😃

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