I was talking to some friends the other day about our soccer
teams. Both of the teams that I play on regularly are pretty good (and by
“pretty good” I mean that most of the players on one team are significantly
better than I am and the other team is about as good as I am or better
than). However, there is one team I
occasionally play for that often irks me.
This is not because they are a bad team, per se. In fact, I’m pretty sure that they have a
winning record this season. The thing
that bugs me is that the guys on the team never listen to the girls on the
team.
It’s one thing if you are already doing your best. It’s a completely different thing to play
lazy soccer or consistently ignore people on your team.
I would much rather play on a team of players who are
terrible, but work their hardest every single game than on a team that
consistently wins, but the players are lazy. In fact, there was one season in
my soccer career when my team only won one game all season, but I still thought
that it was a fantastic season because everyone always brought their A game to
the field. However, I was on an
intramural team in college where we had massive amounts of talent on the field
and won most of our games, but didn’t play well as a team. Most of the players were
selfish and, even though we won, they were often lazy during the game by
playing crappy defense or giving up the ball rather than passing to someone
that was open. Despite this relatively
successful season, it was one of my least favorite soccer seasons I’ve ever
experienced.
What I am trying to convey here is that as long as people
are trying their hardest and are doing whatever they are able to do to the best
of their abilities, I never have a beef with them. These people are constantly improving and are
usually open to getting help from others when they have the opportunity. Those folks that skate by on natural ability
and never seem to strive for improvement irritate me.
To be fair, we all have off days when we just don’t have the
motivation to work hard. I get that. In
fact, I’m writing a blog entry right now instead of working on a research paper
for graduate school. I’m living it. However, I’m going to buckle down and start
working on that paper as soon as I’ve finished this up. I’m going to put in the
effort to create a solid product and improve my understanding of the subject
matter.
Ultimately, I know that I can’t control other people (although,
let’s face it, we really want to be able to do so sometimes). However, I wish
that more people paid attention to the amount of effort and dedication put into
something rather than just the end result.
Truthfully, that losing season was a great experience for me even though
it looked horrible on paper. Don’t
underestimate an experience because of its outcome. Take what you can from the
experience and apply it to the next one.
