Hi. Maybe you know me and maybe you don't, but I'll tell you this... I'm gonna write the way I speak. It won't always be punctuated correctly. It may not be spelled correctly. It may not have correct sentence structure. It may not even be something you agree with, but I'll promise you this: I will always say what I believe is right. I'm always going to be taking up for what's fair, and I'll give you a piece of my life... a genuine story from my everyday affairs that could probably help yours; as long as you just take it in and look at life from outside of your head.
If you're wondering - I'm 28. I'm male. I'm seperated soon to be happily divorced. I have two kids - one boy and one girl. I'm not technically dating... yet, though I have nothing against it. lol. (I'll say lol a lot because I smile a lot... so I want you to know when I am.) I live in the east. I spent a couple years in college without the degree. I've read a great deal since I've been out of college. So, in essence I have the equivalent of a high school diploma with lots of life experience (sounds like I'm interviewing for a job. Although, I'd never say that in a job interview. More on those later). Now, stick with me here. Don't let your mind wander just cause i don't have a sheep skin. I hope you might learn something from this "uneducated" schMoe. you'll learn more about me in the coming posts but let's start with this...
I figured out something just yesterday. It was one of those eye opening thoughts that when you apply it to everyone around you, you realize just how a great deal of people think. It allows a person to split others into two categories and really gets to the root of motivations. The thought was this:
It is much easier in life to be "the good guy" than to always try to appear to be "the good guy".
"Oooooooh, Mo your first post. That's a real winner." ~sarcasm~
It is, trust me. If you look at everyone you deal with today and say, "Is he good or trying to look like he's good?" you will, first off, probably laugh if you come to the conclusion that he's trying to appear to be good. Then, you'll quickly adjust strategies to dealing with him.
I'm going to give you the example as it happened. I play softball with some great friends. I pitched and we had a girl catching that is not very experienced at the game. I have gotten into the habit of covering the plate on plays at home, over the past season and a half, when there's someone back there who has less experience playing. The coach (we'll call him HEH8ME), one of my dearest friends, had given the order to cover the plate on top of my already instinctive desire to do so.
The problem arises when the catcher becomes somewhat insulted that I'm doing her job. (In all reality I'm doing MY job and that is to get us back off the field as quickly as possible.) That's when her spokesman comes to me, not the coach - me, to tell me that I don't understand her situation. "Hmmmm", I think to myself, "I truly hope that he's going to impart some amazing wisdom about human nature and the ability to play softball. Because otherwise I don't see where this is going." Then, I figure it out. As he's telling me about how she "...doesn't hit very well, you know." and "...well she doesn't run real well.", but "...you're taking away the only part of the game where she may be able to redeem herself." It was difficult not to laugh. "...MAY be able to redeem herself. I thought." - he's trying to APPEAR to be the good guy here. This guy, who, admittedly, is a very good friend of mine (we'll call him LONEGUNMAN), is standing here for no other reason than to try to make himself look better because he's supposedly looking out for the little guy.
He tries to appeal to me with comparisons to others on our team who have struggled, and that "we're all here to have fun." Oddly enough, right then i look around at the bench and no one is smiling. I point that out. I've pointed out a great deal of the time that just because people are at the game it doesn't mean they are necessarily having fun. There is no way, in life to gauge why someone should be having fun because those reasons are normally very personal. Truth be told I have fun when I feel like I can affect the outcome. Call it control, call it what you want, but it's fun for me to affect the outcome of a situation... even better? To affect the outcome indirectly.
There are some great ways to determine "fun", but overall, even winning isn't always everything nor a gauge to determine what is actually fun.
So, this guy continues with my point that everyone on our team is having a great time, but not smiling. He says, "...we lost every single game last year, yet we got EVERYONE back." Good point, I'm sure that everyone wanted to come back just so that we could lose every single game this season. I'm, as a matter of fact, absolutely positive that everyone re-upped because they wanted to enjoy the humiliation of defeat 22 more times this year. Isn't that why we play?
I agree, a pretty thin argument.
The real reason everyone came back is this: ALL of my friends are very competitive. Anything we've ever done together has quickly become a test to see who can improve the quickest. It has, sadly, ruined nearly everything we've enjoyed doing together in the long run (namely Magic, and Halo) because eventually we'd have all had to turn pro to get any better than we were. The activity already consumed all of our free time, and we did nothing but think and talk about it at work. There was nothing wrong with any of that. We all loved to play those games, but, eventually there came a breaking point at which we could not continue to keep up with the compeitition, whether due to finances or time. It seems as though whomever in our group has the most of which ever commodity that affects their talent level at that game is needed; is the one who is also the best at it.
Softball, is a different kind of animal for us. It's a team game. So, we can't dramatically improve by ourselves. So, being all-consuming (like other things we've done), is nearly impossible because there are so few things that we can do by ourselves. We then have a controlled rise to the top levels of competitiveness, instead of meteoric like it normally is. (A lot of times we used to play Halo together weekly, and players would gain so much ground on others from week to week that we'd have to pick new teams every time because the talent level had shifted from the previous games.) THAT is what everyone shows up every time for. If I could show my friends that playing marbles would be a fun, rewarding and competitive experience they'd buy the best set of marbles they could find.
Sidenote: Inherently, HEH8ME would buy a great masher marble that looked amazing, but may not be the absolute best. Another friend (we'll call him 'S BIG BOY) would buy the absolute best masher he could find, based on what the salesperson at the masher marble store would tell him no matter if the salesperson was a complete idiot - he normally does well with that strategy though. As a matter of fact, after they read this, there may be a rush on good blogging software.
Now, back to LONEGUNMAN's propositon that we are there to have fun. (This is the moral of the story) The reason that he thinks just showing up is fun is because he's not the best at the game - yet. If he was, then it'd be all about us winning because that's what it turns into when you get close to the top of any activity in our group and in life. You want to see success because you are close to it and can nearly touch it. It has nothing to do with how you feel about people personally. It's about the way you feel about what the true goal is in what you do. LONEGUNMAN's goal was to detract from the real issues of his own desire to be out there playing 100% of the time. Since he wasn't going to get 100% playing time it'd be easier to pander to other players who weren't getting to play... just as he wasn't getting to play in the way he wanted.
The challenge in dealing with people like this(especially ones whom you'd consider one of your dearest friends) is not insulting them while calling them on what they say. You have to think quickly because they'll say anything to APPEAR to be "the good guy" whether it's the truth or otherwise. They've also, more than likely, been preparing their speech and reasoning as to why they are right and you are absolutely wrong. Your best defense is history, trends, and seeing through the dark veils of what people say vs. what they think and do. Then, after all that, you might suggest they try BEING "the good guy" instead of just acting like him.
To all who don't know my friends, you'd really like them. They just have to have some sort of excitement in their lives. I'm no exception. Some call it drama... I call it character amongst an entire group. I Love them dearly. One of the greatest parts about them is I can say things like this, and we'll still be good friends... they might be disgruntled for a couple of weeks, but we'll be fine. They know, in the end, I'm fair and I truly do care about them, I justget frustrated sometimes. I know, in the end, I could ask them for the shirt off their backs in a Frostburg "... BITE INTO A YORK PEPPERMINT PATTY..." snow storm and they'd give it to me. No questions asked.
Thanks for reading, and I hope that you enjoyed it. Next time, something dealing with people I've never physically met...
Take care.
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