Keeping Score

I hear the comment from time to time "I wish I knew then what I know now."  I don't know so much about that.  What we know  about life, we've had to live.  There isn't a guidebook.


I've said many times that sports are life lessons but just what does that mean?  It means (in my opinion) that sports participation provides with opportunities to learn about life, about who we are, and about how to deal with the rest of the world.


It's about setting goals and reaching them.  About working hard and seeing the fruits of your labor.  We probably don't realize it at the time (as a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure of this) but we are learning about how to be successful adults all the time during this phase of our life.


When I was growing up, it seemed to be all about keeping score.  About everything.  And usually not about the stuff that really mattered. 


Stuff like what kind of car you drove.  Or who stayed home on Saturday night.  Which girl liked you and which one you liked.  What to wear to impress the girls.


(If there seems to be a common theme here, well...there is.  Girls, football, and gas money were about all we cared about back then.)


I can remember one time that my best friend and I bought the latest and greatest athletic shoes--the running shoes of the day.  I remember them well-white Adidas with red stripes.  We went to school the next day and thought we were hot stuff.  Except that we were semi-embarrassed that both of us were wearing the exact same shoes. 


Things haven't changed much.  It's always the latest and greatest.


Later on it became questions about what were you going to do with the rest of your life.  Or how many friends you might have.  You might always wonder if you were popular or good looking. 


Deeper questions should have been things like were you trustworthy.  Did you make good decisions.  Were you a good person.  We didn't really think about that stuff but it drove a lot of what we did and who we were to become.


You see, we were oblivious to these things while actually growing up.  But our experiences were molding us along the way, changing us, slowly forming the person that we were to become. 


A lot of people I grew up with didn't really figure it out.  Or didn't figure it out for a very long time.  It's sad really.  Some of those aren't with us anymore.  Some were never able to take those lessons that they learned on the playing field or court and apply them to real life.


Do you think things are different today?  Oh heavens no.  The same issues, the same problems, the same dramas are still with us.  They might look differently but they're the same thing.


Same song, different verse.


Just remember--life is about how you treat people.  Life is about doing your homework.  It's about doing what you say and saying what you mean.  It's about building a life and being happy with who you are.