Does competitiveness and winning still exist?
I got to watch (and participate) in Miss Charlie’s sports carnival today.
I was so excited. Quite possibly more excited for it than she was. I was practising my cheer and wearing my house colours, supporting the happy, fun, full of energy, competitive vibe that is “Sports Day” at school.
I can recall numerous lunch breaks for weeks leading up to our carnivals in which we were all out on the sports ovals practising our house cheer and march. It was a serious thing. Never mind the fact that I’m naturally a competitive person (OK, perhaps a flaw that I’ve been perpetuating for years now), our sports carnivals were all about which house colour could accrue the most points and be declared winners. Come to think of it, maybe I’m so competitive now because my “house” never won and therefore I’m ever pursuing the unachievable dream.. But that’s a piece for another day.
Well, you could imagine my sheer wonder and horror amazement when I discovered the fact that Miss Charlie and the rest of her junior school friends were in-fact not using a real spoon and egg for the races… I know, right, blew me away too!
They instead had wooden paddles and wooden shaped egg-things-that-weren’t-really-eggs.
What happens when their hands wibble wobble and they drop their eggs? I’ll tell you. They bend right down and pick them up and put them back on their wooden-paddle-spoon.
And so I ask, where’s the lesson in that?
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