With the World Cup only a week away, the passion of nations is about to be put on display for the world to see. The line between ecstasy and exasperation will be measured in moments and inches rather than hours and yards. Preparations for this spectacle have been going on for years because for most of us, it is just that big of a deal. Soccer truly is its own religion. The problem, however, is the same as it is with most religions. When people care that much about something, they tend to leave their ability to reason at the door. Passion trumps perspective and people lose sight of what is TRULY important. This is extremely evident in soccer’s hate triangle*.
This past weekend at my son’s game, it became evident that there are a lot of negative feelings swirling around the soccer fields these days. There is obviously plenty of excitement and passion to go around but the negative feelings are also ubiquitous. Most of the time these feelings are directed at a particular group of people involved. Every game has the potential to become a powder keg as tempers (both expressed and unexpressed) flare up. Three groups represent the biggest sources of animosity and project it outward toward one or both of the others. Coaches, Parents and Referees are the adults surrounding a game. While stuck in the middle are the young people that the game is supposed to be for. Obviously not every parent, coach or referee has these negative feelings toward the other groups but it is so ever-present that most kids are affected.
So in the name of the children that we are supposed to be helping navigate this game and life, here are some suggestions on how to break the hate triangle:
Walk a mile – It’s so extremely easy be an expert on something that you’ve never done. Perspective is a game changer. So if you’re a parent or coach who regularly finds fault with referees, sign up for a course or volunteer to “referee” a scrimmage game within your club. These simple actions can give you the perspective of the other party. Empathy is a key component to breaking down the walls between opposed people. One of the best ways to cultivate empathy is through a different experience.
Communicate only when emotion is low – Do your best not to say (or scream) what you’re thinking in that heated moment. Pause and wait for a time when you and the other party are calm to discuss situations.
Remember people – More than likely you’re not dealing with the reincarnation of Genghis Khan. This person is not a demon. They are another human that has a family, friends and a job. It’s easier to judge someone else as bad based on one moment of their life. While I’m sure that you’ve handled every situation of your life perfectly, it might not be fair or helpful to hold everyone to a standard of perfection.
Be a person you’d like to meet – If the roles were reversed, would you want to deal with you? Putting the best version of yourself forward gives an example for the other side to live up to. At bare minimum in these tumultuous times, people might not show you their best side. You should never lower yourself to become a person that you don’t like.
These are not the only strategies but they’re a start. In the end we need to remember every single weekend that the World Cup is most likely not at stake in the game that we’re involved with. Something more important is. The future of how our young people relate to one another is being formed at every moment. How many more generations do we want to keep in soccer’s hate* triangle?
Break the cycle!
Pete
*(I use the word hate on purpose. It is more to describe the depth of feeling rather than pervasiveness of that feeling.)
Unless you are brought to the hospital in an ambulance, the first place that you visit is triage. It’s the station where the severity of your injury or illness is determined in order to prioritize treatment. Broken bones take precedent over upset stomachs and so on. People who can wait, often do, for long periods of time in the waiting room. However no one stays in triage for very long. Once your situation is determined, it is time to move on to get the help that you need or wait your turn. Triage is not an outcome!
So today I give you nothing because it’s exactly what you need. You need to know that no one is coming to save you. Ed McMahon is not showing up with a check! Superman is not coming to carry you away to a beach vacation! And you aren’t getting rock hard abs by watching commercials, you get them by doing the sit-ups. You probably don’t need more information, you need more action. Take a bunch of the tidbits that you’ve let die on your dreams list and make them happen because only YOU CAN!
At one point in history, I’m sure that superlatives meant something. I surely felt like they did during my childhood. Michael Jordan was definitely the best player in the NBA. You didn’t need to shout it louder to make your point. It could be said softly with a calm assurance that it was accurate. As the internet has given a voice to every two thumbed animal with a high speed connection, superlative seems to be a game for people who want to yell the loudest.
Fantasy sports are a popular pass time for many people. It is no longer a young male adult game but something that any sports fan can attempt. For me, the only one that has ever held my attention was fantasy football. The scoring is easy to follow and the games are only once per week. The concept behind fantasy sports is a simple one, try to compile the best team that you can in order to earn the most points each week. There are many different perspectives on drafting players but the overwhelming concept is filling your team with as many “superstars/point getters” as you possibly can.
As we are moving past the time when most people have given up on their New Year’s Resolutions, I offer this subtle reminder. THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED. It is sometimes a difficult thing to swallow. Goals and resolutions are pretty and shiny when we create them. Everything will go great! You’ll be able to maintain this level of excitement until you get to the end! The problem is that we usually forget or don’t know the following.
It’s Valentine’s Day! One of my most memorable Valentine’s Days was in my sophomore year of high school. At the time, I was single but not completely happy about that situation. So it came as a huge but welcome surprise that I received two red carnations in homeroom. The card didn’t say who they were from. It just said, “Someone loves you!” The rest of that day, I spent trying to figure out who could have sent them. I’ll fully admit that I had a slight strut to my step throughout school. My hope was that my secret admirer would reveal herself by the end of the day. Unfortunately she did not.
Kids pretend all the time. They turn sticks into swords, a backyard into a jungle and anything has the potential to be magical. Then as we grow, it seems to be trained out of us. We tend to see ourselves in finite terms. Our limits are not those of our imagination but rather of our circumstances. We don’t consider the impossible or even the improbable because it has been trained out of us. Pretending is child’s play and most of us consider ourselves too mature to do that. The truth is that we’re all pretenders, we’ve just bought into a more sophisticated game.
The world seems to be in a never-ending search for balance. While finding this balance is difficult it seems to come most naturally from the pull of opposing forces rather than the migration toward a middle ground. Magnetism, life cycles and so many other phenomena are based on the polarity of their systems. At a certain point human beings should be anticipating the balancing forces of nature but instead we seem to fight it at every turn. Such is the case with learning, especially in the modern world. I’ve encapsulated this concept using the fast moving but rigid rails of trains. The other part to the idea consists of trails which are more free-form. Until recently I was not able to articulate the balance inside of my own head or for outward expression.
Intuitively I know that the education system is at best flawed and at worst broken. Much like the rails of the train, it can only go to specific destinations and relies heavily on schedules and uniformity. There may be first class and express ticket options available but the destinations are largely the same. The conductors of this system scoff at those who travel by any other means because they’ve become so enamored with their efficiency that they accept its limitations.
Huryk Unlimited 