Now we've never been one of those ultra-competitive jackass teams (ahem, Slow and Bouncy) but I have to be honest...it felt good to win. REEAAAL GOOD. Each week we found ourselves needing more and more wins to fuel the rush we felt before. And when the winning was over we felt low, lonely, and depressed. So that we found our selves itching for our next fix.
Winning began to affect our social lives. Friends began noticing a negative change in our attitudes, we were suddenly more focused on scoring and beginning to drink less - one of the first signs of an addiction to winning. At work we spoke incessantly of kickball, words like undefeated, and we won AGAIN became regular fixtures in our vocabulary. A couple of us even lost our jobs because of our obsession with winning.
Winning began to take over other parts of our lives as well - which became especially difficult for the three couples on our team (man, we do have a lot of couples on our team) since both parties have to win every single disagreement, everything becomes a huge fight. Hell, Steph and Biff almost divorced over their shared winning addiction. Luckily for their marriage, and for all of us - we were soon forced to face a loss, the only cure for a winning addiction.
They say you can't pull yourself up till you've hit rock bottom - well we hit it, hard. We lost not once, not twice, but three times in a row. To teams that we've beaten before! The detox from winning was hard on all of us, but we pulled through - and came out stronger for it in the end.
Looking back it's easy to see how we fell into a winning addiction, and we want to stop other teams from getting addicted to winning too. Here are some simple changes to look for within your own team that might indicate a winning addiciton:
- You've stopped drinking during the game
- You leave early from the bar - cause you gotta hit the gym tomorrow.
- You've begun ironing your waka tshirt
- You won't leave the house on thursday unless your wristbands match your headband that matches your socks that match your shorts that match your waka tshirt.
- Your friends look away in shame when you start a sentence with, "My kickball team..." or "On Thursday..."
One day at a time,
Team HHHHEEEEEYYYYYY
3 comments:
Wow, thank you for this valuable lesson. I do believe Orange and Black need a little of your therapy.
Another helpful hint. Avoid licking your hands incessantly while playing kickball. Not only is it unsanitary (more so then even the flip cup tables), but symptoms from overexposure to kickball dirt include irritability, excessive whining and perhaps most profound, an addiction to winning.
I think all of those points described me...were do I get help...Winners Anonymous?
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