Who’s winning?

In years past, I recall someone telling me that winning isn’t everything.  Over the decades I have had to agree with this person – and the 20 or so that have repeated it to me since.  Winning isn’t everything.  There I said it.

What happens to a person when there are repeated losses and not a win?  What happens to a team with repeated losses and not a win?  What happens to a soul with repeated losses and not a win?  These are questions that I’ve been pondering for the last few weeks.

The answer actually comes from an unlikely figure,…..my daughter.

My daughter has been on a Basketball team and then a Softball team back to back for the last 8 months.  They had one win in Basketball and so far no wins in Baseball.  One would think she would have some “canned” answer regarding loosing and winning; something like the question I’ve been asking myself lately, “winning isn’t everything”, or even “loosing stinks.”

But she does not.

She seems to enjoy doing what she is doing – playing ball on a team.  When we ask her about the score at the end of the game – she knows it – yet it doesn’t seem to affect her.  At least not as much as it seems to affect most of the parents on the team; myself included.  At my daughters age, the parents take it much harder than most of the girls do.

We have all heard the statement, “It’s the Journey not the Destination.”  This is tough to center on sometimes for all of us.  Life has a tendency to push us into making decisions and focusing on the end product, not how we get there.

After watching my daughter over these last months I can see that repeated losses don’t do too much to the soul, if that soul is in it for the adventure, the exploration, or the voyage not for the win/loss ratio.

My thoughts though, are settling on when in life do we make that transition from loving the journey – oblivious to the idea that we need to have a destination in mind – to letting the destination take over the moments of the journey.

My question for you is; when in life did you lose sight of the journey and start focusing on the destination?

…running through my mind…

Me Running Mates

Sometime during the summer, I told my two oldest kids that they were going for a bicycle ride, alongside me while I ran.  They balked and complained, so I offered that they could take a soccer ball and a football and play at a near by Middle School while I ran around the track once we got there.  For several times this summer they enjoyed riding over with me, enjoyed playing while we were at the track and then enjoyed the ride back home.

I liked having the company while running.  Especially my 8-year-old daughter.  I would put my earphones on, but inevitably she would start talking about something and I’d pull them out.  It got to the point over the summer that I would not put my earphones on while I was running with them.  I got to hear about what was going on at school, what was going on with friends of her’s and what she was thinking about during her last softball game.  The connection that we were building – while she rode and I ran – was an exercise that I began to look forward to.  My 6-year-old boy was just as much a pleasure to hear laugh at a squirrel that ran across his path, or listen to him talk about everything he was going to do when we got to the Middle School.

Over time, I got to watch my kids go from trepidation while crossing little known roads, to stopping looking both ways (most of the time) and then forging on their own down the road we had traveled a dozen times already.  Pretty soon there was not chatter or talk amongst us as we journeyed on to the Middle School.  I missed the time we had to talk with each other very much, however I was beginning to enjoy watching them do their own thing, while I was 10-20-30 feet behind them.  I will not be able to do that in life very often, or for much longer.

As Fall snuck upon us, our travels to the Middle School waned and drew to a close.  Neither one of them wanted to traverse the already conquered subdivision roads in order to play with a couple of balls in an open field.  These mates of mine, that I talked with during my runs were now on to other episodes of their life to subdue and overcome. 

I’m so happy, lucky, blessed, and glad that this is one way I was able to spend my summer.

 

…running through my mind…