Have we lost that drive to win? Or if we haven’t lost it, are we in the process of losing it?
There are times in the wee hours of the morning or late at night when I just woolgather and come up with these philosophical questions.
I’m mainly talking about sports and the drive to win. Lord knows I try to steer clear of politics and other controversial subjects, but sometimes it’s just hard not to overlap.
If we are indeed losing our competitive edge, when did it happen? What caused it?
Just like finding your way to the center of a Tootsie Pop, the world may never know.
In my opinion (let’s be honest here, in this column, my opinion matters here because that’s what’s driving the writing) a large part of it likely started when we started to hand out participation trophies.
“Oh, you tried your hardest, but still lost? That’s okay, here’s a trophy anyway, now let’s go out and get some ice cream.”
I’m not saying don’t need some kind of recognition or encouragement. They do, it helps in their development.
What I’m saying is that if everyone gets a trophy or the same sort of recognition, then it just becomes commonplace.
The commonplace replaces any sense of accomplishment, hard work or sacrifice needed to achieve your goal.
If that goal is winning on any level, then giving an award for losing cheapens what the winners achieved.
It tells the winners, “good job, but what you did really wasn’t a big deal, so next time, don’t try so hard.”
For the losers, it’s almost the same thing. “Oh, you didn’t win? Here’s your award though.”
It’s the wrong message.
The losers won’t have to work as hard to push themselves to another level while the winners, who see the losers getting the same thing, won’t have to do what they did to win in the first place.
I’m not saying we need to teach kids to be poor sports in order to win, far from it.
I learned that when you did win, to do it graciously and not at the loser’s expense. I learned to congratulate their effort, but not to embarrass someone for losing.
I wasn’t a very athletic kid (I know, hard to believe, huh?) I wasn’t very good in sports growing up. Heck, I wasn’t very good in most things requiring physical activities.
Didn’t mean I didn’t try. It didn’t mean I was dissuaded or just flat out told by adults how bad I was.
One thing, though, was my expectations were tempered. I still received encouragement and was pushed to succeed, but in other avenues of my life. I grew to know my limitations and what I could and could not do.
I didn’t spend my time worrying why I wasn’t as fast as a smaller kid or why I couldn’t jump as high.
My point is, if we spend our time giving kids false hope, then they may never truly realize where there actual potential and gifts may be.
We’ll raise generations of kids who think they can all be stars when we just need people to be who they are and to do well what they are able to do.
Kids, either learned or unlearned, don’t see the work needed to achieve something.
That’s probably one of the big reasons most youngsters aspire to be a streamer or YouTuber or something like that.
Even with a job like that, there is work that needs to be put into it in order to achieve it.
If we don’t take the time now to impart a work ethic to kids and hold them accountable for these things, then they’re just going to go through life aimlessly and not really doing anything but sitting at home in front of screens.
Accountability and responsibility are big to be sure.
I’d say the majority of you who read this learned these things from an early age.
I know parents want to give their children the things they didn’t have while also working to ensure the world is a little easier.
There’s nothing wrong with that, but we need to be careful and don’t set them up to fail.
Once they go out into the real world and get a 9 to 5 job, how will they behave? What will they do when a boss holds them accountable for the work they do or don’t do?
One of the best things I learned as a kid was the fact that “life isn’t fair.”
Life isn’t like the movies. Heck life isn’t like a lot of the YouTube video or TikToks kids watch now.
The sooner we realize that, the better off we’ll be.
Often there will be times that no matter how hard you work or how good you are, things are just not going go your way.
Sports is supposed to be one of those things that show kids this so they’ll be ready when they are adults in the real world.
It’s hard for kids to get this message when we’re going against this message so readily by giving them that trophy for nothing.
Of course there is more on this subject I can talk about and who knows, maybe I will, but right now this column has ran a little long and I’m going to cut of here.
Before I go, I hope that maybe, you might think a little on what I’ve said.
