You can control two things: your work ethic and your attitude

Host: The morning sun broke through the mist, spilling over an empty soccer field on the edge of the city. The grass shimmered with dew, tiny diamonds catching the first light. From the bleachers, the sound of distant traffic murmured like a faraway sea, but here — it was quiet, just the rhythm of breath, wind, and memory.

Host: Jack stood by the goalpost, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his worn coat, watching the white net sway gently. Jeeny jogged up the sideline, her hair pulled back, her face flushed from effort. She had a notebook under her arm, a whistle around her neck — a coach’s relics, symbols of order and belief.

Host: Above them, the sky was pale and vast, like a blank page waiting for a story about persistence, about control, about what it means to keep going when the world refuses to cooperate.

Jeeny: (smiling) “Ali Krieger once said, ‘You can control two things: your work ethic and your attitude about anything.’ I think about that every time I lace up.”

Jack: (grunts) “That sounds like the kind of thing you find printed on a locker-room wall — next to ‘Pain is weakness leaving the body.’”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But sometimes a cliché is just a truth we’ve heard too many times to feel anymore.”

Jack: “Or a lie repeated so often it feels true. Control? That’s an illusion. You can work hard, think positive — and still lose everything.”

Jeeny: “You’re right. You can. But that’s not what she meant. Krieger wasn’t talking about outcomes. She was talking about ownership — that small part of life no one can steal.”

Jack: “Ownership? Try telling that to a single mother juggling three jobs. Or to a refugee whose life depends on someone else’s border policy. Attitude doesn’t feed your kids.”

Jeeny: (pauses) “No. But without it, you can’t even start the day.”

Host: The wind picked up, carrying the faint smell of rain and cut grass. Jack’s jaw tightened, his eyes tracing the empty field, the faint chalk lines fading from last night’s storm.

Jack: “You ever think we tell people to ‘control what they can’ because we’re afraid to admit how little that really is? It’s comforting to believe effort equals destiny.”

Jeeny: “But that belief has built everything — teams, art, revolutions. People who couldn’t control the world controlled themselves. That’s how they survived it.”

Jack: (half-laughs) “So, attitude as rebellion?”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The quiet kind. The kind that shows up every morning and says, ‘I may not win, but I’m not quitting.’”

Host: The sunlight grew stronger, spilling gold over the grass, the posts, their faces. It was the kind of light that doesn’t ask permission — it just arrives.

Jack: “You sound like a coach. Always believing in discipline, grit, and all that heroic nonsense.”

Jeeny: “You sound like someone who’s afraid of hope.”

Jack: (turns sharply) “Hope doesn’t pay bills. Work does. But I’ve worked harder than most and still watched things fall apart. You can’t control failure any more than you can control luck.”

Jeeny: “But you can control how you face it.”

Jack: “That’s just semantics.”

Jeeny: “No, that’s survival. Look at Krieger herself — she tore her ACL before the Olympics. Everyone wrote her off. But she came back because she refused to let attitude rot what her body couldn’t do. That’s control, Jack — not over life, but over despair.”

Host: A bird flew low over the field, a streak of white against the growing blue. Jack’s eyes followed it, silent for a moment, the line of his mouth softening.

Jack: “So what, you think the world bends for people who smile through suffering?”

Jeeny: “No. I think the world bends for people who keep showing up even when it doesn’t.”

Jack: “That sounds noble. But most people don’t have the luxury to keep showing up. Sometimes, the world just breaks you.”

Jeeny: “And sometimes, you get to decide how it breaks you. You can collapse, or you can crack open.”

Host: The silence between them shimmered, electric and fragile. Jeeny dropped her notebook onto the bench, pages fluttering open — sketches of drills, scribbled quotes, fragments of philosophy written in rushed handwriting.

Jack: “You write these things down?”

Jeeny: (nods) “When I feel like quitting. When I forget that I still get to choose my response.”

Jack: “And it helps?”

Jeeny: “Every time.”

Host: Jack stepped forward, kicking a loose ball at his feet. It rolled lazily toward Jeeny, who trapped it beneath her shoe.

Jack: “You ever think control itself is the problem? That the more we chase it, the less peace we find?”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s because we’re trying to control outcomes instead of effort. The work and the attitude — that’s all we ever truly have. Everything else is weather.”

Jack: “Weather still ruins the game.”

Jeeny: (grinning) “Then learn to play in the rain.”

Host: Her words landed softly, but they carried the weight of sunlight breaking through storm clouds. Jack looked at her — at the steadiness in her eyes, the quiet conviction that had no need for applause.

Jack: “You really think that’s enough? Work and attitude?”

Jeeny: “I think it’s all that’s left when everything else is stripped away. You can’t promise victory. You can’t promise fairness. But you can promise effort. You can promise grace.”

Host: The wind died down. The city began to stir in the distance — sirens, laughter, footsteps — the day’s first chorus. Jeeny kicked the ball gently toward Jack. It rolled to his feet, perfectly still.

Jack: (picks it up, murmuring) “Effort and grace, huh?”

Jeeny: “That’s the real control, Jack. The kind that doesn’t need power to exist.”

Jack: (smiles faintly) “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s not about winning the game — just playing it without surrender.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Work like it matters. Believe like it does, even when it doesn’t.”

Host: The camera would have pulled back then — wide shot — the two of them standing alone on the endless green, the morning rising behind them. The sun climbed higher, washing the field in gold. The goalposts cast long shadows, stretching across the grass like reminders of both boundaries and possibility.

Host: Jack dropped the ball, giving it a gentle kick. It rolled forward, slow but sure, finding the center of the empty goal.

Host: He watched it settle, then turned to Jeeny with a quiet, almost reverent smile.

Jack: “Alright, Coach. Let’s see if attitude can score twice.”

Jeeny: (laughs softly) “Only if you work for it.”

Host: The wind picked up once more, carrying the laughter across the empty field — two souls in motion against the weight of the world, proving in silence that control isn’t about power at all.

Host: It’s about presence. It’s about refusing to stop. And as the sunlight filled the sky, the camera lingered on the net, still trembling from that last shot — a symbol of effort meeting grace, and both still holding.