![]() Everyone who has ever taken a look at a snapshot of someone else’s life and thought, That looks cool, has suffered from a case of FOMO. And we hang on to these ideas and let them consume us, even when the reality isn’t necessarily that way. We create all these ideas about what’s going on in our lives … about the experiences we are having, or the ones other people are having. Checking out Instagram … scrolling through your friends’ pictures of that Coachella weekend you couldn’t make it to … looking over and seeing “Grand Slam Winner” next to a competitor’s name. I’m writing you from 2017 - from a society obsessed with FOMO. The long answer … hang on, Milos: Are you too old to remember what FOMO is? You know, the “fear of missing out”? The short answer, of course, is that it’s all a matter of perspective - perspective which hopefully you will gain more and more of, with each passing year. Which begs the question, I guess: Milos … who are you? Are you an amazing success story, who flew past all of his wildest boyhood dreams by the time you were 21? Or are you what Andre Agassi described himself as, back when he was one place higher in the rankings than you are today? Are you mediocre? ![]() Top 50. That, to you, as 16-year-old Milos, would have been a satisfying life.Īnd now you’re 26 - and you’re No. You were extremely ambitious - ambitious enough to give up on a sweet deal, at one of the most prestigious universities in the U.S., and ambitious enough to bet everything on yourself by turning pro. And when you were picturing it … picturing going pro, as a teenager … picturing what a dream career would be … picturing the kind of career that would be worth giving up on UVA for … well, you pictured the highest ranking you could ever imagine. You were just a kid who played high school tennis in Canada, a country that had never produced a men’s finalist in a Grand Slam.īut then you found out, around 16 or 17, that tennis was something you might have a chance to become pretty damn good at. You know all of those old Sports Illustrated profiles you would read, where the athlete would say, “From the day I was born, my goal was to be the best in the world” - something like that? Yeah, well, that wasn’t you. 1? You might be too old to remember this now, but it’s true. I’d packed up my stuff and was all set to go.īut then … I didn’t. I had signed a letter to attend Virginia on a tennis scholarship. More than 10 years ago, I was a kid who got up early before school to train at a club in Richmond Hill. Imagine if I’d told you - back when you were 16 years old and working with a ball machine at a public tennis club in Ontario - that someday you were going to be ranked fourth. The craziest part is that, at this point in my life, I can totally relate to what he was going through.Īs I write this, I’m 26 years old, and I’m the No. Andre knew his goal and he knew that every ranking spot in between where he was and where he wanted to be - whether it was No. There was the top of the mountain, and then there were the guys who were trying to scale it. For a player of Andre’s calibre, there was No. ![]() 3 in the world - a field that included legends of the sport like Pete and Ivan Lendl.Īnd it still wasn’t good enough. 3 in the world. And what he felt was … mediocre.Īndre was No.
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