Marriage exposes me to certain experiences I doubt I'd choose were I single. Television, movies in particular, offers a great diversification from my usual cinematic interests. Ever seen The Notebook?
The Notebook is a quality film, at least within its own genre. But still, I'd be alright not seeing it one time more than I already have.
Exposure to cinema outside my realm of action, horror, sci-fi, and thrillers brings disappointment most of the time. It equals the amount of disappointment I have with the movie types I prefer.
The Grizzlies
That being said, a true gem shines through every so often. The Grizzlies is one of those films. Set in a small indigenous town in the icy far north, The Grizzlies tells the story about a group of troubled teens.
When a new teacher arrives, it doesn't take long before he sees the rampant depression. Feelings of worthlessness have manifested to the point that many of the kids turn to suicide as a final answer.
Deciding to take action, the teacher uses teamwork (in the form of Lacrosse) as a tool to cut through the despair. I hope I didn't spoil the movie. It illustrates my point as well as any story could do.
Days Of Football
Where I live we don't call it football 🏈, rather the game is known as soccer ⚽. You wouldn't know it if you met my out of shape, cigarette smoking, fool of an ass now. Once upon a time in highschool, I played varsity soccer.
There is a scene in The Grizzlies that brought me back to those glory days. In the heat of the game, action intensifies and the speed increases. For a team playing in unison, the exact opposite happens to each player.
For the player, time seems to slow down. It's part hypersensitivity from adrenaline. In this sense of slow motion is where the magic of teamwork unfolds. Patterns of teamwork have been so firmly established that each player holds a crystal ball.
When each player knows the exact location of every one of their teammates, the magic has begun. The spell is cast when players know where their teammates are going to be ahead of time.
Through Competiton With All Its Failures & Victories
Competiton gets a bad rap sometimes. It's nothing new. People have always been apt to denounce the bunch instead of the few bad apples.
When competition exists unperverted, losing is just as important as winning. No, I take that back. Losing is more important than winning.
Looking back at my losses, I was always able to find some positives. Some smaller successes within the contest. Winning feels great and that's important for building self esteem. But it doesn't teach the lessons a loss does.
As a team, I never lost the game by myself. I sure screwed up a few times and got a verbal beating afterwards, but I never lost the game alone.
There were times the blame for a loss was out on my shoulders. It's what taught me not to blame a loss on any of my teammates mistakes, ever. For if the rest of the team had stepped up and covered the gap, no one would have been crying about the defeat.
I've been on teams that made mistakes and everyone pointed the finger at everyone else. It doesn't need spelling out that those were losing teams. The game wasn't fun to play for an entire season.
And I've been on teams that made mistakes and everyone reached out a hand to lift the other players up. No one ever blamed anyone else for a loss. If we lost, the other team best us fair and square. They were simply better than us that day and they gave some things to work on.
Teamwork Is Essential
If celebrating victory is deflating when there's no one around to share it with, what about defeat? Losing all alone is utterly demoralizing and completely unnecessary.
How does the saying go? In life, pain is mandatory but suffering is optional.
Participating as a member in various teams throughout my life has made more of a difference than I may ever be aware of. Within myself and in the lives that all my teammates went on to live.
I'm not keen on giving advice because I don't like to take it. If there is one suggestion I can make, don't go it alone. Not in life and not here on HIVE.
United we thrive. Divided we suffer.
Thanks for reading and as always...
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So true! Great essay!
Thanks Owasco. Losing isn't much fun but if we learn from it, our turn to win will come around. 👍
I really loved the notebook when i saw it! It a beautiful story of true love.
It's a tear jerker and one that pulls at the heartstrings. I'm ok with that from time to time but 18 times is also enough for me. 😁
hahahahahahahah 18 timeeees, wooow... that´s too much. have you seen ¨the vow¨ and ¨the proposal¨?
I don't think so. Are they love stories as well?
Yess, The vow is kind of sad too, but the proposal it´s a funny one, i can´t get enough of it.
I might have though. My wife puts in movies that I end up watching and I don't even know what they're called. 🤣🤣
hahahahahahaha that happen to me too!! I put some movies and after that i don´t even remmember the name.
Ok thanks. I'm going to keep an eye open for those two. 👍
How does the saying go? In life, pain is mandatory but suffering is optional.
So true. Failure is just an experience, not a dead end. We can learn so many things from it and it changes us in a good way if we learn what we did wrong.
P. S. I loved The Notebook. I also think that the role of a good teacher is of great value, especially when dealing with teens
Thanks for all engagement and the tokens. 😁
You're hard to keep up with. If I didn't do it now, I don't know if I'd be able to catch up! 😁
Haha you're welcome!
Your post today has the perfect feel good message needed after suffering through a Monday. Haha. Team Work Makes The Dream Work! Right? Absolutely and your spot on about the loses. I remember and have learned so much from my failures and loses throughout life. Whether it was sports, work, school or life. I am better off for having suffered them.
Now, as far as the movies go.. I haven't seen either one. Maybe on the next rainy day! They both sound interesting enough to check out :-)
🤣🤣
If you haven't seen Office Space, that's a lighter comedy that you'll thoroughly enjoy.
Thanks for stopping by. 👍
OH YEAH! I've seen it. I love that movie, but the wife does not. She says it's not that funny.. I disagree. I like when Peter is at the therapists office and says something along the lines of...
"I was sitting in my cubicle today and I realized that since I started working, every day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every day that you see me, it has been the worst day of my life."
Or something like that. I don't know why, but I laugh and laugh and laugh every time I see that part.
Haha. She doesn't think it's funny? Michael Bolton?
"The truth is, I don't really care if you guys fire me or not. You'd actually be doing me a favor". 🤣🤣
🤣😂🤣
In teamwork there's no one to blame for a loss, loss is sometimes the best teacher. The important thing is taking the positive and keep doing our best effort to fullfil our goals.
So true. One of my coaches used to sit us down and go through our errors after a game. It wasn't a lighthearted talk. We learned to see that everyone helped lose the game. It was never what one person did at the end to lose it. There were many other mistakes and missed opportunities by us all during the course of the game.
It was easy to say someone lost the game right at the end. There may be something to the fact that some people perform better under pressure than others. But when we looked at the WHOLE game, our coach would show us that it shouldn't have even been a close score at the end.
Teamwork is all about pulling ones weight (doing your bit), adding expression unique to oneself into a full community.
Well rounded description of how life takes you like a river ever flowing onward...
Haha, so true Joan. We had a place for team members that didn't pull their weight. They would get the nickname 'splinter', cause they rode the bench.
In baseball, being benched means you get to sit in the dugout and watch your team play the game. 😁
People not willing to work together are welcome to go it alone, more than likely permanently benched... just don't drain time and energy of those who are here.
Yeah the bench is the place to either pull it together or decide to go it alone or belong somewhere else.
I like the way you start talking about some films and end up talking about working on teamwork and the importance of belonging to a team where we support each other and can grow together.
Excellent!
Thanks. I love the metaphor! One of my favorite things to do when writing is tie seemingly unrelated aspects of life together. I'm always trying to perceive my experience through a different lense. 😁
I really like this. Marriage has opened my mind completely.
Most of the best things that happened to me were never a part of my plan. 😁👍
GREAT POST!!!
Thank you for publishing it to our community feed!
Compliments of the PHC founder @jaynie...
We have tweeted, upvoted and reblogged it for you.
❤ MWAH!!! ❤
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