I'm from South Carolina and it's a football rivalry state. Here, you're either a Gamecock or a Tiger. You may not have attended either school, but you're still one or the other. (I attended law school at the University of South Carolina, so it's a legit alma mater for me. And BTW, like Darius Rucker says, our USC was a school before California was a state.) In SC, team loyalty is a matter of tradition, heritage and culture. Both teams have had good years and bad years, but fans stay loyal. Clemson has had many more good years and by far holds the edge in the rivalry football game - especially lately - but forget that whole National Championship thing. You know what matters? It matters who wins the Carolina-Clemson game.
The Gamecocks have been in a rebuilding period since Steve Spurrier walked away from the team mid-season several years ago. But they hired Coach Will Muschamp and he's done an amazing job. It's Year 2 of the Muschamp era and the Gamecocks are #2 in the SEC East - instead of dead last as was predicted pre-season, and they'll end with a winning record and go bowling. They're 7-3 now, Wofford is ahead which will have the Cocks 8-3 going into the last game of the season -- the "Palmetto Bowl" - the BIG one - the Carolina-Clemson game. No one outside of the state thinks we can beat Clemson this year, but Gamecock fans believe. And win or lose, the Gamecocks will proceed with the motto that Muschamp brought -- "So what? Now what?"
I read a blog from "The State" newspaper, and it's the first time I'd heard of the motto. It seems the team has adopted it and the players live it now. I've just decided to adopt it too. What better saying to guide your life? Whether you won or lost, yesterday is in the past. We can't change yesterday. We can relive it, and allow the mistakes of the past to define the future or we can say, "so what." If it was, then it was and no amount of self-torture will change it. It happened. So what?
The thing we can change is what we'll do today, and how we'll approach tomorrow. We can choose to recognize that today is ours to conquer and tomorrow is ours to prepare for. We can wake up saying, "now what?"
On a writing level, this means that I can look at Amazon and see that my books haven't taken off yet. Kindle Unlimited folks - love y'all - have been reading, but not enough customers have been buying. I could wallow in that, and cry over that. I could toss up my hands and stop writing altogether, or I can say, "So What? Now What?" I chose the latter. I've dropped the price of a few of my books to .99 cents, hoping that it will spur some folks to join a duck lady in the journey over the top of forever. The books that are currently .99 cents are: Brotherly Love, Seducing The Billionaire, and Tempting Duty.
Maybe you haven't read one of my books before. So What? Now what - you can do is pick up one of my .99 cent specials and give crazy love a try. And here in Casa de Duck my youngest son and I (the football fans in the family) will await the Carolina-Clemson game, saying So What if Carolina lost last year. It's Now What time!