And So It Ends

I didn't expect to win tonight. In fact, I guaranteed that we would lose. But, you know, it still hurts when your team falls, especially after having accomplished so much, after having worked so hard under a coach who has taken charge of the development of so much more than skills on the court. Both teams and both coaches had a great run this year, and it's heartbreaking to witness such losses because you know that these players and coaches deserve it. When it ends, it all seems so unfair: Players will graduate without having achieved that national title, and fans will long remark about the season that could have been. You wonder how such a thing could happen to people who care so much--people who have passion for more than just the game. They've paid their dues, as they say, so it is only right that they should have won.
But that's hardly ever the case. Think about it. This story is the story of all but a single team, and it is a story that is retold with various little twists every spring. There is always heartache, and many will recount the missed opportunities and the glory that seemed within a fingertip's reach.
Am I trying to make a point with this? I think I am, though I'm rather tired, and it is three in the morning. You may think you deserve something because of what you have done or endured. You may think that getting anything less than what you want is unfair, maybe cruel. But as I recall, you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need.
We all wanted to win, obviously. But is that what we needed? Losing gives a player the opportunity to look at his mistakes with an eye toward improvement, while winning often leads a player to view his mistakes largely as occurrences of chance. The lessons learned through losing are far more numerous and far more valuable than those learned through winning. When we lose, we learn that we are not perfect. We learn one of the most difficult lesson's life has to teach: that sometimes, no matter how hard you try, even if you give it the absolute best that you have ever or will ever be able to, you will fail. We learn that life isn't a fairy tale and that sometimes the knight in shining armor never does come; sometimes the princess remains in slumber for eternity.
Well, I did say "sometimes". When something doesn't happen sometimes, it follows that sometimes, it does. That's another great lesson to be learned, but it doesn't come from losing once or twice. It comes from a legacy of losing and the desire to put an end to that legacy--perhaps the desire to create a new legacy. Personally, I think this lesson is even harder to learn. Truly learning this lesson involves knowing all of the aforementioned--knowing that failure may be all that's out there for you, knowing that your dreams may never come true, knowing that your life may never be what you or anyone else expected it to be. This lesson involves knowing all of this shit...and going forward anyway.
Perseverance is one of those traits that's becoming obsolete these days, and that scares the hell out of me. I see this kind of thing all the time, not only in the world of academics, where students are steered away from fields that involve subjects with which they struggle, even if these students have true passion for said subjects, but I see this also with parents who discourage their small children from participating in sports in which they do not excel. Sometimes people forget that not everyone is a superstar. Not everyone can be, not everyone should be, and not everyone wants to be. Sometimes people just want to be and do. It's not always about winning. It's not always about being the best. But it is always about the fact that you love doing it.
For the second night in a row, I've written something that just took on a life of its own. I didn't intend to get into some of my comments as deeply as it seems I have, but I'm quite alright with letting my thoughts flow freely. That's how we really learn things anyway. If I tried to restrict myself in what is supposed to be a safe place for me to spew mental vomit all over without having to worry about cleaning it up, I would be defeating the purpose of even having this place.

I wanted to say more about what happened to me this weekend--about how I was completely shafted in some ways and about revealing myself to even more people, some of whom reacted rather negatively. But I'm here now, and those things don't really matter. I didn't get what I wanted, which wasn't fair in any way, and I do not relinquish my original stance or give any ground whatsoever to the opposing party, but I did get exactly what I needed out of this trip and out of that game. So sometimes you lose, and maybe the only thing you learn is how to deal with losing.