Compete with Yourself
I was never good at team sports and, in fact, always hated them from the beginning. It was my young mind telling me something more sophisticated than I could understand at the time. My feelings weren’t necessarily about the competition because I am a competitor. Nor was it that I was averse to the activity, as I was an extremely active boy.
True, I was never fully aware of the technical aspects of many of the sports I played before age ten, which never helps. In basketball, I tossed a ball in my opponents’ basket. In baseball I struck out every time at bat, and I hardly remember my soccer days. I think I blocked it out.
As I grew older I gravitated more to racquetball and I still play today. What I love about the game, is that it doesn’t require one to be dependent on a team to win. Like tennis, track, swimming, or golf, the sport requires your own effort, skill, and personal endurance to win and if you lose, you have nobody else to blame. In essence, you are competing against yourself as you compete against others. You aren’t some piece of a puzzle. You’re the whole puzzle. I love that about solo sports.
Too much of our cultural practice revolves around trying to outdo someone else, even as a team player. The “best” players on the team make the most money and get the most playing time. The other players on the team are given what they are told they deserve based on comparative measurement. It ultimately conditions “lesser players” to believe their worth is only in comparison to someone else. Henceforth, they stop trying to do better. That’s team etiquette.
In traditional workplaces the key term you always hear is “team player.” Perhaps team sports at an early age is a precursor to prepping kids for traditional job placements where being a “team player” means keeping your job and getting tons of social support. In team sports, it meant sit on the bench the whole time if you are no good, and in the workplace it means acquiesce to the demands of others regardless if you are fulfilling your personal goals or visions.
In looking back, I’m happy that I recognized from an early age that something was a little off for me personally as a young child with regards to team sports and traditional molds, and that I naturally transitioned into solo sports, and left traditional workplaces. Ultimately, I discovered that the the biggest competition is bettering yourself everyday based upon your own interests, merits, and design. I believe life itself is a solo sport, which makes everyday an awesome new challenge to work for and outdo myself, not others.
October 4, 2022