Strong lines to follow
A friend was telling me how in the schools of his children they have taken away scoring sports games - he himself was a professional hockey player for over 20 years. We live in a world where everyone gets a prize and protect people from losing but his question is, "what is so bad about winning?"
The children score their games in the playground as they likely have since the first a children played games. As he puts it, it isn't the scoring of children's games that is the problem, it is the adults who attribute value to the score, that demand certain performance and punish what they consider poor.
It is interesting to think about his question though, what is so bad about winning? Why should people be somehow ashamed of being successful and feel guilty if they are talented?
I have wrestled with this all of my life as while I am not gifted, my work ethic has supported accomplishments that were otherwise out of reach. My goal has been to strive for my own bests, regardless of what others are doing but, when I do well I have held myself back, let others win. It seems so innocuous when it is just a child's game but, it has carried across far more important areas of my life.
I feel that I have done myself and others a disservice at times by not pushing when I knew I had more to give, falling short when I had their measure. I justified it through claims of social awareness, civility and empathy but, the result is that while I fall short, others have an inflated and unrealistic understanding of their own skills too.
Many people in this world have a view that they are actually better than they are, perhaps that is the norm. Like the delusions of a wannabe singing star who has been told by family they are talented when the truth is, they cannot hold a key.
Perhaps what I like about subways are the strong directional lines, guides that indicate where to go and what is expected. I like it because there are all the commuters who know where they are going, marching to the drums of the designer's plans for traffic flow.
I don't fit in there, and when I am commuting through, I can feel that I do not belong. There is beauty in not belonging too, it is a form of struggle. Maybe we all feel that we do not belong, no matter how similar our thoughts and actions are to those around us, maybe it is because we are going through the motions of life without living it.
Many people feel strange, feel weird, feel alien in the landscape they have always known, the one in which they were raised and for which they were conditioned. Told over and over to play their part, to blend in, fade away, do as others - when every fibre of their being says, be more, be better, be who you are.
Being who we truly are is difficult, because so many think they are truly something else entirely. Do you know what you are capable of or, is it only what you think?
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
(posted from phone on train to home)
I also have enjoyed the subways as I often would think about how coincidental life often is that people gather for moments without saying a word while life goes on for each. What of the people we never see again has often gone through my mind; not because of interest but of curiosity.
Yep, we are definitely strange animals in the way we don't interact with people in crowds.
I used to ref a lot of kids soccer games and this is so true. The younger kids we never kept score (I think it was under 8), but the parents always cheered when the kids made a goal and when that team won at the end of the game.
Even without the parents cheering one team walked off with smiles and the other team walked off with heads held a little lower (well at least the kids who cared and weren't out there just because their parents made them).
It's silly to do away with it because as you pointed out they know who is winning and how is loosing weather anyone officially keeps score or not. It's human nature to want to be the best.
Children compete naturally, it is adults who apply the culture and connotation of success and failure to it. As kids in the yard playing a game and losing didn't feel much like losing, it was just part of the game. As it is.
Not winning teaches you life lessons. Shame so many people will not learn these lessons. Learning these lessons teaches you to be a winner
Kids know that there is a winner and a looser. Some influential Adults seem to have the problem
Losing is part of life and the lessons involved invaluable in my opinion. People want to protect their children by making all children wesker and less capable.
Losing does not mean that the person is a looser.
Exactly.