Blog: A Day In The Life
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Wednesday, 17 February 2010
What's The Score?
I remember in Junior School when we used to play football every lunchtime; it was always the same game - always the same two teams against each other. We'd try so hard to win every time; it was so important to always know the score at any time, and at the end of the game the winners would boast in glory at the opposition's defeat. This taunting may have gone on in to the afternoon's lesson, but was completely forgotten by the next day. We would start again, 0-0, and the whole thing would recommence - the obsession with trying to be (even slightly) better than the other team that lunchtime.I have many memories of this state of mind from my youth. It seems that it was ever so important to everyone that they always won at everything, despite the fact it meant nothing whatsoever, would be immediately forgotten and had no bearing on future events. The same would be seen in P.E. class - if it was a game of rounders between two teams, each one would thrive to get more points than the other, going to the extreme of arguing over each disputed point, cheating, accusing one-another of cheating, lying and changing the rules to fix the outcome; all this just for the sake of winning that one game, the outcome of which would be discarded within an hour of the game ending. But in that hour the pride of the winning team's members (even those who had no input in aiding the victory) would shine and the shame of the losing team would show in the form of bitterness and shear bad losing.
I was reminded of this mindless desperation to win this evening at a pool session with my canoe club; we decided to have a game of canoe polo to get people more involved and give them more of a reason to put their skills to practise. I really enjoyed the game - we all did - it was a great way of getting people to use their skills to chase the ball, paddle forward quickly, stop immediately, turn on the spot, paddle backwards, and so on. However, it became apparent that people were more concerned about what the score was (whether they were ahead or behind, and by how far), which made me think about what people's motivating factors are. It annoys me that people have a tendency to only do as much as they need to, so if they were five goals ahead that they would relax more and not try as hard - but the team five goals behind would be fighting for their lives to try and catch up (unless they had given up).
Another thing that came up was a touch of cheating, foul play and attempts to disallow valid goals simply out of annoyance at conceding. People were gloating when they were ahead, and after every other goal they would claim it missed or that there was some rule to say the goal shouldn't count. Then when it came close to the end of the session people were arguing over when the game would end (next goal wins / first to ten / end at 9:00...)
In a way it was great that we found a way of getting people to practise their skills properly but I just don't see why we had to being the concept of winning and losing in to play. I couldn't care less what the outcome was, although I did try my very best to win each point - regardless of how many we were in front or behind. Some people with a very anti-competition mindset would say they would rather lose a game if they were playing one, because it meant they had to work harder and that they would feel pushed. Personally I always try to win for myself, regardless of what my chances were, and I'd always try my best to perform to the best of my abilities.
Posted by Ben Nuttall at 23:46 
