Thursday; July 14

I used to be a better fan than I am now. For most of the first part of my life, I would follow sports teams because I enjoyed the games. I had to enjoy the games because my teams usually weren’t very good! Then, something interesting happened – my teams had a few good years and became successful. While this made me happy while they were winning, when they started losing again, I became disappointed and disillusioned. No longer did I enjoy the “games”, I got to where I liked the “winning”. Success can be nice, but when that becomes the focus, we tend to lose the ability to enjoy things as much as we could or should.

The reason I bring this up is the temptation to lose interest in something when it isn’t successful. We stop enjoying gardening when we don’t grow prize-winning flowers. We cease to enjoy watching our children play sports when they aren’t the stars of the team. We give up on fishing when we don’t consistently catch our limit or we sell our golf clubs when our drives aren’t as long or puts aren’t as straight. Sure, it can be fun to win, but the downside is when the outcome becomes more important than participating in the process.

Is there something you used to do that you quit doing because you stopped being “successful”? Maybe now is the time to try it again – but this time don’t forget to do it for the love of the game.

Think About It!

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