Sometimes they work, and sometimes they just won't. Sometimes you get hung up on them. When that happens, you just throw it back, and maybe come back to it two or three weeks later.
Sometimes, you're going to have to work hard, sometimes extra hard, and sometimes you still won't get that recognition. That's life. That's the way it is. But if you keep working, eventually you'll get the prize you're seeking.
Looking at myself, I'm a center, I'm 275 pounds, I'm taking hard fouls, making decisions where 'nothing easy' is my favorite. Sometimes in the middle, sometimes you get screened, sometimes it's an illegal screen, and that stuff is part of the game.
Sometimes I get recognised and sometimes I don't. The bus drivers will sometimes stop to try and get a selfie at peak times with traffic all around you!
The most important lesson in managing our careers as we get older: Sometimes staying the game is as simple as not leaving the room.
Sometimes when we get our ass kicked and we're down, sometimes we stay down, and sometimes we get depressed and sometimes we don't know how to handle it, and sometimes we don't know what's going on, and sometimes we feel like it's not worth going on.
Sometimes when things get hard, we tend to set our sights on what's hard, that difficult thing that keeps us upset, and we turn our back on our strengths.
Sometimes you don't go straight from high school or college and get to the NBA from there. Sometimes you have to go when you're a little bit older and try that other route like Jeremy Lin. And he made it.
We all need that sometimes, to get re-sparked again. Sometimes it's different influences and different motivations; sometimes we've got to go and get back to the basics.
So sometimes things are ahead and sometimes they are behind; Sometimes breathing is hard, sometimes it comes easily; Sometimes there is strength and sometimes weakness; Sometimes one is up and sometimes down. Therefore the sage avoids extremes, excesses, and complacency.
The massive thing that has changed for me was the game management aspect. I still get it wrong sometimes, we all do, when to attack and when to kick, how to control the game, speeding it up and slowing it down. Whereas I used to just go flat out, as hard as I can, get the ball out and get to the ruck as quick as possible.
People get sick and sometimes they get better and sometimes they don't. And it doesn't matter if the sickness is cancer or if it's depression. Sometimes the drugs work and sometimes they don't. Sometimes the drugs work for a while and then they stop. Sometimes the alternative stuff works and sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes you wonder if no outside interference makes any difference at all; if an illness is like a storm, if it simply has to run its course and, at the end of it, depending on how robust you are, you will be alive. Or you will be dead.
Every manager has different opinions and all you can do as a player is try to fight and get your spot back, or at least earn your manager's trust back to try and get your spot back. There's no use sulking about it, you just get on with it and try to raise your game to get back to the level you need to be when you were starting.
Sometimes you get into fights if a teammate is getting taken advantage of, sometimes just from competing and you feel someone takes a cheap shot. It's just the intensity. It's an intense game, sometimes you just get too fired up and fights happen.
You try to take advantage of taking control of the game when you know you may have guys on base and counts aren't in your favor or whatever. You just try to figure out ways to slow the game down to get back to the pace that you want it to be at, to try to get the momentum back on your side.
I have sometimes done cartoons that are hurtful to people - immature, spiteful stuff. Some are so self-indulgent, and some have just failed. I look back and sometimes cringe. But one regret as I get older is that I haven't been radical and wild enough.