Playing to Lose

Ever since I picked George as my favorite Beatle and not Paul or John I have suspected that I am not normal. The evidence has mounted since then, and now I know it for sure. If I were, there would be no Olympics. Not that I don't want the Olympics to exist, but if I were the norm then nobody would watch, nobody would go, nobody would care, and the athletes would only do it for the pure joy and exhilaration of their own achievements and not to win medals or endorsement contracts or beat someone else. 

It seems to me that all of life these days is about competition, winning, being the best, and I just don't relate. I have never been competitive, which is surely why I haven't done very well in terms of financial success, fame or whatever the yardstick is that signals "success." In fact, anytime I am doing well at whatever it is I am doing, the mere presence of a competitor knocks the wind out of my sails. It's when I notice that someone else is in the race that I lose all interest. This is not a literal race I am talking about, although it happens then too. Out walking in the morning, I go along at quite a clip, trying to do better than I did the day before, but if someone else shows up on the path behind me, I slow way down until they pass by. Hey, I'm not going to play that game!

My husband is the complete opposite, spurred on by the mere presence of someone he can best. This explains why he is so devoted to his fitness cult called Crossfit. Not only do all the other cultists work their butts off trying to do well, but the day's results are then posted on a big "white board" at the gym and also online, so everyone can see just how they performed in relation to everyone else, as if their own performance is made better or worse because someone else did better or worse, if you know what I mean. It's just plain dumb.

I have not yet watched any of the Olympics now underway in London. All I know is they cost billions of dollars to produce and Mitt Romney went there and said one tiny truth about how they weren't all buttoned up, and the next thing you know his truth is being called a "gaffe"--which tells you all you need to know about politics, doesn't it?--and the whole world is watching, except of course in India where 600 million people are without power, and someone named Ryan Lochte swam better than Michael Phelps did last time, so soon enough this Lochte fellow will be hawking something that we all better buy or eat or do if we want to succeed. Maybe this time I'll try some of whatever it is and see if things get better for me.