Losing as a character-building activity

Here's another classic from my newswriting career. The following is a column I wrote for the sports section published in April of 2005. Enjoy.

A long time ago somebody said “You can’t win until you first know how to lose.” Whoever came up with this saying was kidding himself and he ought to be kicked in the shin for his efforts.

While I don’t consider myself an expert on losing I did attend a high school that boasted a .317 winning percentage (in all sports combined) so I have a feeling that I know what I’m talking about. We certainly knew how to lose, but winning never seemed to come as easily. This years Snow College football team won as many games this season (7) as my high school team won in four years.

But you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way.

It’s easy to have a lot of school spirit when your team wins more games than it loses. It takes a much tougher fan to pull for the side that is losing seven out of every ten games. You need a thick skin and a big heart to endure an entire season in that sort of grueling atmosphere.

When you are rooting for an unsuccessful program you learn to enjoy humble pie by the slice. The losses come in droves and before long losing becomes easier to bear because you no longer fear it, you have done it plenty of times before, and when that one big win comes around you thrive off of it for months.

During my senior year our school’s football team finally managed to win our homecoming game for the first time in the history of the school against arguably our biggest rival that we had never beaten.

And although we lost a lot more games than we won throughout the rest of the school year all anybody ever talked about until the day of graduation was how we miraculously beat Bingham that Friday night in September.

Losing also brings the school community together. Everybody is fighting the good fight together. There is no “jock” clique because who wants to be in a clique that can’t win? Other, more successful school programs also get more attention, I still remember the first time I caught myself bragging to some kids from a rival school, “Your wrestlers may be good, but our Madrigals would rock your world any day of the week.”

Now all 3,000 or so of us have come together in this salad bowl of experiences that is Snow College, all of us bringing our own special ingredients to the table where we get to cheer for a winning athletic program.

Those of us that came from winning high schools will teach the rest of us how to win, and the rest of us from the less than successful programs will teach the winners how to live up the wins and live down the losses.

Thinking out loud

I used to be that friend that everybody went to with their problems. That's how I used to make friends, I would seek out the broken souls (at least the female broken souls) and then get them to tell me their life stories. Then I would try to fix everything for them. One of my close friends growing up actually called me her "mentor" I was a 14-year-old with the mind of a wise old man.

I don't do that very much anymore. I haven't for a long time. It wasn't that I didn't like it. I loved it, I loved making people happy and making them feel better about themselves. I'm not completely sure why I gave it up, probably because it was just too damned exhausting. In a few frustrating situations I found out that sometimes people don't want to be happy, they like being miserable, and you can't fix somebody that doesn't want to be fixed.

I also learned that when it comes to advice most people don't want it. 99% of the time when people ask for advice they're asking for you to tell them what they want to hear. They've made up their minds, now they just want somebody else to say what they're thinking so that they will be more confident with the decision they're already decided upon. It's not exactly an optimistic way to look at it, but we all do it.

I've never been very good at telling people what they want to hear, that drove some people away, and I also gave up on fixing people. I can't fix anybody, even if they want me to. When I gave up trying to be the "caretaker to the world" (as my school counselor would call it) my mental health improved dramatically. I started taking care of (and looking out for) myself. To this day that's something that sounds selfish for me to do, but I understand that it has a lot to do with why I'm as resilient a person as I am.

I also stopped giving out so much advice. My close friends all know (or at least they should know) that I would do anything for them, but a lot of times advice isn't what they want or need, which is something I didn't know why I was younger (and sometimes I forget, ask around, I tend to give out my fair share of unsolicited advice, my bad). Sometimes somebody just wants to talk about what's bugging them, to think out loud. Sometimes they just want a hug, and sometimes they don't want to talk about their problems at all, sometimes they need to get their mind off of their problems, if even just for an hour or two.

That said, sometimes I find myself falling into bad habits. I'll see a friend heading down a path that everybody around them knows isn't good for them, and I'll pull my hair out wanting to get them to change their minds. Sometimes I just want to shake them senseless, or at least until they can realize how stupid they're acting. It drives me nuts when I see somebody I care about ignore the great opportunities they have in front of them in favor of some misguided pipe dream that is only going to lead to them getting hurt.

But now, unlike before, I know that I need to stop myself. I don't know as much as I think I do sometimes, and besides, it's not my place to tell them what they should and shouldn't do. In the end the best thing is to let them go off and learn the lesson for themselves, and sometimes people need to chase their pipe dreams.

So instead of rushing in and trying to rectify the situation I'll keep my mouth shut. That's what a good friend does. I think.

Tip of the Day for my North Carolinian friends

Last night, for the first time in the 2+ years I've lived in the Tar Heel State, we had a legitimate snowstorm. I woke up in the morning to three to five inches of snow on the ground and classes cancelled for the day.

A fair share of students on campus spent the day frolicking and whatnot, I didn't have much interest in anything like that, I've seen plenty of snow in my time. It's cold and wet, and if given the choice between a snowball fight and an extra few hours of sleep I'll take the sleep.

Anyhoo, for those of you who have to leave their cars outside and commute around the city here's a tip that can save you some time standing outside freezing your ass off and maybe even a few dollars if you want to avoid buying an ice scraper that you'll only use a few times.

The night before a snowstorm (or any other time where you think you'll need to use your scraper later on) take a piece of fabric you don't particularly care for (I like to use an old towel) and place it on the outside of your windshield. Use the windshield wipers to help hold it up. This also works for other windows you don't feel like scraping in the morning, just figure out a way to get them to stay on the window and you're good to go. Then in the morning peel the fabric off and tada! You no longer have to spend ten minutes scraping that bitch off.