Like a Champion or Not?

          Hello everybody,

I've been thinking about this topic for some time. When is it that we become too competitive?

A few weeks ago my school held this dodgeball tournament for the students. I played with my homeroom against another homeroom in our grade. The day before we played, both homerooms had this, "electricity" I'll say, between each other. We would say that our homeroom would win, and bring the other down and blah blah.

Honestly, I went along with it too. I would say stuff like "Get ready!" and "Be prepared on (the day we played)!". I said it just so that there could be some anticipation and "giddiness" before the game. Others would say things like "Be ready to get beat!" or "You're going down!" and "We will demolish you!", and that would definitely get some people pumped up. And then we played.

Despite some "threats" and our confidence, my homeroom was pretty much bark and no bite. We lost against the other homeroom, but we were really close to winning.

We didn't cheat, and it was a clean game. My class did feel some disappointment because we did want to win and move on to the finals. Also, our super strict teacher (aka my faaaave teacher) wanted us and expected us to win, but we didn't deliver that...

After the game, a few people from the other class came to say "good game" and all that jazz, but only a few. The rest? I'd rather not say... Though one particular person was actually really getting on my nerves. As we exited the gym, the person, who's also my friend, was behind me, and she kept repeating "We won, we won, we won, we won! I told you so! Told you so! Told you so!" on and on on.

I did want to say "Can you please stop?" because it was annoying me! She wouldn't stop repeating that! I didn't say what I wanted to say however, because if I did, some people would say that I'm a "sore loser". I've had people say that to me in the past. And I don't like being called that.

That same day, I passed by a friend who was in the homeroom that won against us, we're pretty good friends. He smiled at me and said "What was it you said about taking us down?". I laughed with him, until one of his classmates came and kept saying "Yeah? Huh? Huh? Huh?" and then I just had to leave.

That got me wondering. They might've won, but did they really? A lot of them took things really far after they won. And because of that, I felt angry about not winning against them. I told my friends "I'm bummed out we lost." and they said "It's just a game." In my head I was thinking I know it's just a game, but I'm still sad we lost! Especially because of the way the other class is acting.

I still haven't figured out the answer to the question I asked myself a while back. When is it that we become too competitive? Maybe I'll leave it unanswered, and you can think about it for yourselves. Whatever you think, it's okay to be happy if you win something, but don't take it too far. And if you ever lose something, just think that you can do better next time!

Keep Smiling,
M-L