and the winner is ...

So I coach a high school soccer team, and today we won. We feel great. A couple of days ago we lost, and we didn't feel so good. Still, then, we sucked it up and came up with some good reasons for our failure on the pitch. And then we said that we'd do better next time, that we'd get 'em next time.

This is all fine and dandy for sports and games, but is this a good analogy for everyday living? Ending up as a winner or a loser makes sense on the pitch, because otherwise, what's the point of playing? Of course it's up to me, if I'm the loser, to consider the failure as an opportunity for learning and improvement, but I'm not going to engage the game next time around if getting better, and winning, aren't options in one way or another. In individual sports, its usually about self-improvement, but it's still reasonable to interpret my motivation as "win-lose". For instance, on my bike I try to ride faster, and I use a cycle computer to help me keep track - when I do ride faster (average speed over a set distance), that's a win.

I don't know if there's a way out of this "competitive" model. Back in the day we sold this "game" called the "Ungame" in the bookstore my dad owned. The "point" of this game was to move your piece around a board and then pick up cards and answer the questions on them truthfully. You didn't accumulate points, you just "divulged information" to your fellow gameplayers. Yuck! A few people bought it (probably those people who like "icebreakers" at the beginning of a meeting - yuck(x2)), but it never took off in sales.

The answer to my own question, at the beginning of the second paragraph, is, I believe, yes. I'd like to think that we (humans that is, all of us) would strive to be more cooperative, more sympathetic, more empathetic - more good - without some sense of "win," but from my own experience, and from watching kids work and play, I'd say that we're hardwired (so to speak) to do things because it feels good to do them. We only make those efforts if there's something in it for us. To deny that "need to win" is to fight our natural circuitry. Listen to yourself when you lose. You try to take something positive away from the experience, in order to improve next time. If you deny the possibility of some kind of "win" at anything, most (all?) people are going to walk off the field of play.

I'm reminded of this truth most clearly as a coach of team. I know when I've failed to give a kid the chance for a "win" (whether we win the game or not). The stakes are pretty high in these kinds of games. I'm always saying, "I'll do better next time."

The ride in:           9'C Wind W 5ks
The ride home:     Picked up the truck (after the game): muffler repair.