By the end of this week, everyone will try to put together the ideas of what exactly makes a sport a sport. Being the person that I am, I’m taking it up a notch. As we all know, it is a privilege to have the talent that a majority of us possess. But with the question that was posed from Zander, I decided to take a different approach.
So what is sport to me? The answer is pretty simple and no one would have thought about that. In all honesty, life is the ultimate sport. It sounds crazy and off the wall, but it’s clear that competition starts for those of us who don’t play on Sundays every time we wake up and ends every time we fall asleep.
So how does life count as sport? I think I’ve hit enough of the good points in the following column.
First Quarter: Wake Up Call
When the alarm goes off in the morning, our day starts off like a track meet. Some people actually go for the world record of bolting out of their house (some of us just to dodge the constant nagging of the other half). But the main reason that some of us are trying to sprint out of the house is because of the morning commute.
If we think about it, traffic is like NASCAR. Everyone wants the pole position (aka the lead), and everyone wants to take out the lousy driver next to them or in front of them. We spend the majority of the time trying not to get in a dangerous wreck or get stuck with a ticket for going two miles over the speed limit.
After we finally get off the freeway, we hit the exits towards our jobs…until we reach a stoplight. We hit the light, and there’s always someone who thinks they’re faster than you. This, in turn, brings about the drag race (so to speak). Once that light hits green, it’s your ’89 Toyota Corolla versus their ’99 Ford Mustang GT all the way to the finish line, or in some cases, the Erik Estrada-wannabe that is waiting for you to pass.
But after you either get caught or win the race, you get to the office and the end of the first quarter of the game called life.
Second Quarter: The Working Day
5 comments Last one added about 1 year ago — Leave a Comment
Andrew Kneeland about 1 year ago
Great, great article. Very original approach, and no, you don't need to say more. :D
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J. B. Kraft about 1 year ago
Ron -- interesting point, but if life is a metaphor of sport, what is the purpose of sport? If all we made were left turns on the way to work and had a team to maintain our cars, I guess we could all be NASCAR drivers. It's not like there's one parking place at Lowe's that I have to beat everyone else to to get.
We don't always compete at work -- I don't "block out the paint" around the water cooler. The "truth" and value that's in sport, if there is any, must be that it inspires us to lead better, more successful lives.
The problem with life as opposed to sport, is that it's often very difficult for us to determine whether we're winning or losing . . . and in the end, the finish line is the same for all of us -- death. At 5 PM, our boss doesn't drop by our office and blow a whistle and say "game over".
Sport distills life from the amorphous, untidy amalgam of meaning and boredom that it is for most of us to a controlled, organized, and evaluated evaluated event. That's part of its beauty. Regards, JB
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Nadene Dodge about 1 year ago
good article!
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Fred Richani about 1 year ago
Nice approach. Definitely out of the box, but in a good way.
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Ron Glover about 1 year ago
*Standing and Applauding* Awesome!
If you work in the right part of town, the lunchtime rush can be just as good as the nightlife.
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