It was the wisest thing I heard all summer. And it wasn’t from a preacher, politician (that’s obvious), or philosopher. But it did come from the King, and if you know anything about racing, you know who that is.
Here’s the quote: “There ain’t 15 minutes of anything worth losing everything.”
A Saturday morning ritual for me, whenever possible, is to get my cup of coffee, sit back, and watch “Marty and McGee.” “Marty and McGee” is a sort of sports talk program on the SEC Network, one of the ESPN networks. But the show is about much more than sports.
Marty Smith and Ryan McGee are born and bred Southerners. Marty was raised in southwestern Virginia, while Ryan was born in Rockingham and grew up in several towns in North and South Carolina. They both now live in the Charlotte area and are award winning reporters for ESPN.
Their conversations for the three hours will center around sports. But it will often venture into other areas, like Bojangles biscuits, Nike sneakers, raising kids, adventures growing up, and so on. In other words, life in general.
Earlier this summer, social media and the news were on fire highlighting an event that took place at a Coldplay music concert. You probably remember seeing the couple getting caught together on video, and how they quickly tried to duck away, trying not to be seen. It turned out the man happened to be a CEO of a large corporation and the lady, who was not his wife, was the Human Resources Director. Needless to say, the video went viral. The following Saturday, the incident came up on the show. McGee then told a story from his early years in broadcasting, while he was covering the NASCAR racing series, and that’s where the words of wisdom came from. It was from the man known in stock car racing as the King, Richard Petty.
Ryan McGee was a young reporter on the NASCAR circuit. There was a lot of time spent on the road, away from home, going from race track to race track, from town to town. McGee had just gotten married and was back at the track working, preparing to cover a race.
McGee shared that’s when Richard Petty took him aside. Petty said that he heard that he had just gotten married. He knew the dangers of those long periods of being away from home. Petty shared how he had been married for a long time. Then he said the line that McGee remembers to this day, many years later.
“Remember,” he told McGee, “there ain’t 15 minutes of anything worth losing everything.”
I know the above is not some deep philosophical quote or some profound Bible verse. But it’s a truth that, if understood and heeded, can avoid much possible pain and suffering. The CEO and the Human Resources Director have both lost their jobs, having resigned their positions. And it’s not hard to imagine the effect it has had on their personal lives and also to those around them. (Remember, there’s always collateral damage.)
While most obvious, that 15 minutes of anything can involve more than just someone of the opposite sex. It can be money, power, position, pleasure, or anything where immediate gratification can end up costing much in the future. In reality, we all, to some degree, have hurt our later by something we thought we had to have now.
On the day I was finishing up this column I read a quote in my daily devotion from Richard Sibbes that relates to all of this. He wrote, “In all temptations let us consider not what it offers, but what we shall lose.” That’s an accurate statement, but the King brings it down to where we are. Because “there ain’t 15 minutes of anything …”