Get up a game

Get up a game

It is said that John F. Kennedy's father's credo was, "Don't get mad, get
even."
And that credo has a certain vengeful, clever wisdom in it as far as it
goes, but you might go even further with this credo: "Don't just get
even—get better."

When Michael Jordan was a sophomore in high school he was cut from
his high school basketball team. Michael Jordan was told by his coach
that he wasn't good enough to play high school basketball. It was a
crushing disappointment for a young boy whose heart was set on
making the team, but he used the incident—not to get mad, not to get
even, but to get better.

We all have those moments when people tell us, or insinuate to us, that
they don't think we measure up—that they don't believe in us. Some of
us have entire childhoods filled with that experience. The most common
reaction is anger and resentment. Sometimes it motivates us to "get
even" or to prove somebody wrong. But there's a better way to respond,
a way that is creative rather than reactive.

"How can I use this?" is the question that puts us on the road to
creativity. It transforms the anger into optimistic energy, so we can
grow beyond someone else's negative expectations.
Johnny Bench, a Hall of Fame baseball player, knew what it was like to
not be believed in.

"In the second grade," he said, "they asked us what we wanted to be. I
said I wanted to be a ballplayer and they laughed. In the eighth grade
they asked the same question, and I said a ballplayer, and they laughed a little more. By the
11th grade, no one was laughing."

Our country has gone through a difficult period of time since World
War II. We no longer value heroes and individual achievement as we
once did. "Competition" has become a bad word. But competition, if
confronted enthusiastically, can be the greatest self-motivating
experience in the world.
What some people fear in the idea of competition, I suppose, is that we
will become obsessed with succeeding at somebody else's expense. That
we'll take too much pleasure in defeating and therefore "being better"
than somebody else. Many times during conversations with my
children's teachers, I am told how the school has progressively removed
grades and awards from some activities "so that the kids don't feel they
have to compare themselves to each other." They are proud of how
they've softened their educational programs so that there's less stress
and competition. But what they are doing is not softening the
program—they are softening the children.

If you are interested in self-motivation, self-creation, and being the best
you can be, there is nothing better than competition. It teaches you the
valuable lesson that no matter how good you are, there is always
somebody better than you are. That's the lesson in humility you need,
the lesson those teachers are misguidedly trying to teach by removing
grades.

It teaches you that by trying to beat somebody else, you reach for more
inside of yourself. Trying to beat somebody else simply puts the "game"
back into life. If it's done optimistically, it gives energy to both
competitors. It teaches sportsmanship. And it gives you a benchmark for
measuring your own growth.

The poet William Butler Yeats used to be amused at how many
definitions people came up with for happiness. But happiness wasn't any
of the things people said it was, insisted Yeats.
"Happiness is just one thing," he said. "Growth. We are happy when we
are growing."

A good competitor will cause you to grow. He will stretch you beyond
your former skill level. If you want to get good at chess, play against
somebody better at chess than you are. In the movie Searching for
Bobby Fisher, we see the negative effects of resisting competition on a
young chess genius until he starts to use the competition to grow. Once
he stops taking it personally and seriously, the game itself becomes
energizing. Once he embraces the intriguing fun of competition, he gets
better and better as a player, and grows as a person.

I mentioned earlier that I'd heard a report on the radio that there was a
Little League organization somewhere in Pennsylvania that had decided
not to keep score in its games anymore because losing might damage the
players' self-esteem. They had it all wrong: Losing teaches kids to grow
in the face of defeat. It also teaches them that losing isn't the same as
dying, or being worthless. It's just the other side of winning. If we teach
children to fear competition because of the possibility of losing, then we
actually lower their self-esteem.

Compete wherever you can. But always compete in the spirit of fun,
knowing that finally surpassing someone else is far less important than
surpassing yourself.

If you're better at a game than I am, when I play against you and try to
beat you it's really not you I'm after. Who I'm really beating is the old
me. Because the old me couldn't beat you.

I'm reading: Get up a game