The Underdog Phenomenon

We frame our lives.  We look at the past under certain lenses that help us not only understand but also cope with that which has befallen us.  Both successes and failures bend to the unique narratives we tell ourselves over and over again.  These narratives, these frames, also become the looking glass in which we interpret our current situation.  The past is prologue.

Growing up, there were two very different stories that I continually wrote and rewrote about myself.  On the one hand, I was the spoiled rich kid who grew up in one of America’s most wealthy suburbs.  On the other, I was the kid with a learning disability, who lost his father at the age of eight, and who felt he could never do anything right.

These frames continuously battled to the forefront of my psyche and clouded my interpretation of daily events.  Eventually, they coalesced into what I like to call the underdog phenomenon.

The underdog phenomenon was the frame, the self inflicted interpretation of my life, that allowed for the best version of me to emerge.

Everything I Ever Needed to Know

As discussed in an earlier post, everything I ever needed to know in life I learned from 80’s rap music.  Ok.  While not totally true, there are a number of profound life lessons I carry from those years of reciting off beat messages over a radio or cassette tape.  In fact, my mind still races into verse multiple times a day when tipped by a certain word or phrase.  I have spent most of my teenage years and adulthood reciting rap (nay poetry) throughout many of my wakeful moments.  It’s the silent cadence of my day.

The underdog phenomenon is a direct result of a song called The Theme of the Underdog by a reggae band, Third World. I first heard this rap in the early eighties, and the words spoke to me.  They created a narrative that made sense.

Audacious Dreams

The thing about having audacious dreams is that you will fail over and over again.  Failure, in fact, is one of the keys to success.  But feeling like a failure, feeling beaten and downtrodden, is not the stuff in which success is made.  For me, the underdog phenomenon is the mechanism by which to metamorphose the conversation.

How could I change the frame from being the abandoned child who lost his father, the dummy who had a learning disability, to something much more productive?

The answer was laid out in that basic rhyme scheme.

The truth no longer mattered.  Whether wealthy first world spoiled brat or beleaguered worthless struggling student, was not really the point.

What really mattered was the frame in which I chose to interpret my life.

And I chose to be the underdog.

Accomplishment Stack

As an adult, I carry a resume of accomplishments that define the roller coaster of my career and financial independence.  The other list, the one not so haughtily displayed, is my failure stack,

But no list can ever get to the essence of suffering and pain that each life experience brings.  In those very hardest moments, in those times when the top of the mountain was furthest out of site, it has been the Theme of The Underdog, the underdog phenomenon, that has been consistently repeated.

Those words, those lyrics, long remembered, and molded and smooshed into my head, have taken a life unto themselves.

After thirty-six hours of being on call in the hospital, in the midst of the wall during a hard run, when huddled in the corner after some big failure or another, those words have been the consistent lifeline.

The reason to keep going.

The optimal frame.

The Theme Of The Underdog by Third World (Underdog Becomes The Champion)

I have tried a few times and not been able to find the original lyrics online.  Here is the old, worn, probably misspoken version I say to myself.  I have no interest in correcting it.

I am a product.  Extracted from an era.  An era of greek poverty and terror.

Cruise like a fruit.  Shipped like foreign goods.  Now all of mine overpopulate neighborhoods.

These thoughts I retain cannot remain inside me.

If people had their way they probably  want to hide me.

But never should they think of me as just dust.

I am not the lint for them to just thrush

Because they know who I am.

They dare not laugh.

My skills stem first for me arts and crafts.

I am a builder whose created many nations.

From the time of now to the start of plantations.

Through all the cities and all the neighborhoods.

My meaning is overlooked and I’m never understood.  

My mind and body are feared when used together.

Not only am I strong but also clever.

My anatomy is similar, yet it’s unique.

With strength and coordination and a stone hard physique

But be that as it may, I am denied what I’ve earned

this course of knowledge, I cannot hide what I’ve learned

Any land, any structure, I’m the owner, the founder the father, the labor  donor

Any invention discovered,  I own the rights.

My people and I shared many sleepless nights.

And even after this, they still don’t believe.

That I can advance and grow and achieve.

Just as they can, or maybe even better.

They try to hold me back like a book holds letters.

But I won’t be ignored and I’ll  fight to the fall.

So It does not hurt when they call me the underdog.