When my nephew was two, we got him a small kid-sized basketball hoop with lots of plush balls to shoot at the hoop. My brother is a basketball coach and my nephew wants nothing more than to be "just like Daddy." So he would heave those balls at the hoop with all his might and sometimes he'd make it! "I make it, I make it!" he'd yell, and we'd all cheer. Sometimes, he wouldn't make it, and we would all hold our breaths to see how this two-year old would take the crush of defeat and failure. "It's ok, sometimes I miss," would be the words from his never-dampened spirit as he shot the ball again and again until he made another shot.
I remember myself at that age (ok, maybe not that age specifically, but at a young age...). I totally would have cried. I've always been a perfectionist, and if I ever encountered something I wasn't good at (or at least as good as I wanted to be), I cried. I cried during piano practice, I cried during spelling bees, you name it, I cried there. My spirits never would have been as high as my nephews if I had missed that shot. I probably would have quit and moved on to another game.
But now I'm learning that quitting is not an option. Just because I make a mistake or I'm not the best at something is no excuse not to give it my best shot. It's hard for the competitor in me, because I have a deep-seeded mindset that if I can't be the best at something (or if I don't have a shot at winning), I shouldn't try. But nothing can be further from the truth! Why do we love (and by "we" I mean most guys and a small group of girls out there) movies like Braveheart, Gladiator, and 300? Because people who knew that they had no chance of winning fought anyway. The opponents cheated, they had better artillery and more men, but our heroes fought anyway. Why? Because they believed in something.
I wonder if I have anything I believe in enough to fight without quitting. Is there anything out there that I would fight for even though I know I'd lose? Am I that passionate about anything? Even in the Christian life I can fight knowing that I'm on the winning team. It doesn't seem to be that much of a risk to me, because I know that regardless of what happens in this life, I'll be on the winning side in the next life, so looking the fool is an acceptable risk. But is there anything I would choose to fight for or against with the full knowledge that I would lose? Is anything worth that?
1 comment:
I love the image of the noble matyr, someone who goes out fighting a losing battle with a smile on his face and a song on his lips; knowing the whole time that he cannot win but refusing to turn aside. My desire to be someone like that is why I read most of the books I read and why I play roleplaying games. Heck most of my free time activities are taken up by me doing entertaining things that let me pretend to be a person like that.
I want to believe I'd be willing to die fighting for my faith and my family; but one can never really know unless one is put in such a situation. And while I'd be willing to go down like that; I'd strongly prefer it to not be for quite some time. But until then I can keep cultivating a noble matyr's spirit with my books and games I guess.
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