Winning

Winning is good, but playing is much more important. Every day, it seems, I hear sports figures, coaches, players, and fans, extol the virtues of winning. You too, I’m sure, have heard “Winning is what it is all about”. “Winning is not the most important thing it is the only thing”. I submit to you, those people have it all wrong; playing is more important than winning. If you don’t play you will never experience winning or losing. Spectators experience neither.

Now let me ask you, how many winners are there in the NFL? Well, you have winners and losers each weekend, but on Super Bowl weekend you have only one winner. What does this picture tell you? It says that one week you may be a loser and the next week you may be a winner. There is, however, only one winner in the quest for the national championship. At the end of the Super Bowl, is the only winner the National Champion team and every other team is a looser? Well that weekend only one team was the winner of the National Championship, but the rest of the teams were not losers, and what about the other 364 days of the year? In any game, if you play long enough you will be on the loosing side as well as the winning side. And which side you end up on any specific week says nothing in particular but the results of the final score. It does, however, say something about your character that you played the game. You have faced the potential of not prevailing on that specific day. By facing your opponent you have accepted the challenge and are willing to lose, if it happens, that day. There will be other days. So if you loose, shake it off, so to speak, and try again. The key is not to dwell on the loss by taking it personal, but to keep practicing and playing, honing your skills to take advantage of the opportunity when it arises to beat your opponent or conquer your challenge. If you play you will, at one time or another, experience both winning and losing just by engaging in the chase of the ball, the run against the clock, the swing of the club, or the crack of the bat.

It may sound a bit hokey, but spectators are much more plentiful than players. You and I know many spectators who never engage. Of course, we are all spectators at one time or another, but it does take some energy to enter the fray and to take on the experience that may lead to loosing which is, for many, another word for failure. But loosing is not failure; it is only not being able to prevail that particular game day. Tomorrow is a new day and a new game. So don’t fear loosing, fear not playing.

Lunch At Nonna's House

One Friday my friend, Gary, and I arrived at my house to start a much-anticipated weekend. We had just driven from Fairmont College and were famished, but a quick perusal of the our refrigerator uncovered no appealing food. I said, “No problem, lets go to my Grandmothers; She always has good food”. We both ran across the empty lot that separated our two houses and pulled open the screen door to find my Nonna standing over a large pot of boiling minestra. Now, this is a peasant dish as Marie, my wife, calls it, but it is great, I think. It is nothing but greens of some type, spinach, kale, or chard, with potatoes, always and bean sometimes. I introduced Gary to her and asked if we could have some minestra for lunch. She said, “You boysa sitta down and hava somea thisa minestra for a luncha”. She provided us with a couple of gigantic slices of hard Italian bread aside of two large bowls and immediately filled the bowls with heaping mounds of smoldering greens and potatoes. As she left the kitchen to tend to her other chores, shouted “munga, munga”. We both blew on the food to cool it off and dug in as if to save our bodies from starvation. After about five minutes, I had half of my dish emptied, but Gary had made nary a dent. He said, “John I don’t see how you can eat this stuff. It tastes awful”. I could understand this because the first 13 or 14 years of my life I too hated it. Something miraculous happened after that and I suddenly loved it. Anyway, I said, “ Don’t worry, just put it back in the pot. She will never know.” He then stood up and emptied his dish into the pot on the stove and sat back down at the table with the empty dish sitting in front of him. I kept eating. My grandmother returned to the kitchen, noticed his empty plate and said, “you likea”? Gary said, “Yes Maam, it was great”. In one large movement she grabbed his empty dish, filled it to the brim, sat it down in front of a startled Gary and said, “Hera hava somemora, youa growina boya”.

Lunch With Nonno

I loved to lunch with Nonno, my grandfather, because not only did I get to taste some great Italian food like my Nonna’s homemade bread, spicy soprasatta and aged provolone cheese, but I was also lucky enough to accompany it with some of his excellent homemade wine. One fall day we were at the table, just the two of us for some reason, and we both were eating quietly. We did not say much; we just enjoyed each other’s company. He had on a white shirt and tie with a vest. His head was round, shiny, and bald with a little band of hair from ear around the back of his head ending at the other ear. In one of my sips of the dark red wine, it found its way into my windpipe, and I coughed uncontrollably, propelling a jet spray across the table landing on you know who. I’ll never forget the image of red wine all over his white shirt and, most of all, on his baldhead where it ran down his forehead forming three or four little ruby rivulets. I immediately and profusely apologized. He said nothing, but grabbed his cloth napkin, wiped his forehead, put the napkin down, shoved the wine bottle in my direction so I could refill, and continued eating as nothing happened.

Enjoy Each Moment

I must work on enjoying each and every moment of the day. I think this may be the secret to having as much fun as possible while toiling at a rather boring job. This trick is not as easy as one might think since here I am at work doing something that really is not joyful, and yet I’m supposed to treat it as if I would rather do nothing else. Do I just reject the notion that I would rather be home, sitting on the couch with my dog, Whitney, petting her while she sleeps on my lap? Do I disregard the feeling that I would rather be somewhere else instead of staring at the computer, typing emails or reviewing financial reports? Maybe the trick is to take pleasure in the little things of the moment, like chatting with a coworker about their family or their work. That is what I will try. I will give it a shot and let you know.