Playing not to lose

I love watching football (soccer). I take any chance I get to see a match on tv. Sometimes, if a team's winning, they'll just defend for the rest of the game and stop trying to score. Or if a they don't need to win, but only a draw, they'll be conservative and not attack much. Invariably, somebody watching the game will yell and curse at the tv, admonishing the team for "playing not to lose."



When I was an undergrad, long long ago, some friends from my dormitory and I formed a soccer team to play in the university intramural league. None of us had any business whatsoever being on a soccer team. We were horrible. Maybe you've seen movies about ragtag collections of losers gaining magical victories through pure heart alone. That was us--except for the victories. Hippies, geeks, scrawny guys, tubby guys. We'd go out to the soccer field and warm up--doing those painful stretches where you stick your feet up in the air and somebody pushes on your legs until your hamstrings and calf muscles snap into a billion little pieces--and then run around on the field like a bunch of maniacs. We were terrible. It was not uncommon to see our goalkeeper smoking cigarrettes during the game. And we would lose, 5-0...7-0...12-0. As the season drew to a close, we decided we would reward anybody on our team who finally scored with a case of beer. Sadly, nobody ever collected that reward! But it was all so much fun. We did it, every week, even though we sucked....even though we hadn't a chance in hell of ever winning a game, just for joy.



I sometimes find myself being conservative, cautious, and defensive in life, mistaking this for being "strategic." What a foolish way to approach each day. So now at the end of the day, as I'm preparing for bed, I ask myself, "Today, in the game of life, did you play to "win?" Did you play for joy, regardless of the outcome? Or did you play not to lose?"