Leave it all on the field

The McCook Bison and several other area high school football teams will kick off their seasons tonight and the locker room pep talk before the game will likely include the admonition from some coaches to "leave it all on the field." Coaches were using that strategy when I played and I'm sure they still are because the reason for it is timeless. Regardless of the task we're facing, if we give it our all and leave nothing in reserve, then we've done all we can do and, win or lose, we can walk away with our heads held high. But not many coaches are able to coax that kind of effort out of most of their players.

As I met my classes for the first time this week, I gave my pep talk too, just as I always do before the "game" starts. I told them the value of an education, not just in economic terms, but in social and emotional terms too. I told them how knowledge is power and the more you know, the better able you are to control the circumstances of your own life. I told them they were privileged to live in a country where anyone who wants to go to college can because that's not the way it is in most countries in the world. They only allow the best and the brightest to attend college and the rest are directed into the trades. I told them that education was a good thing in its own right because it's kind of cool to go to bed at night knowing things you didn't know when you got up this morning.

I make these first day comments every semester, knowing full well what the eventual outcome is going to be. A few students will internalize the things I've said and motivate themselves to be the best they can be and their grades will reflect that. There will also be a few students who resist even the best sales pitch you can make, decide they would rather party than study and their grades will reflect that too. The rest of the students will fall somewhere in the middle.

That's the way life is. The same thing happens on job sites, in office buildings, in friendships and in relationships. Some people win, others lose and many just tread water. Where any one person falls in that scheme of things is a result primarily of their upbringing. Do we play the game of life ethically or do we cut corners to get what we want? Do we give it everything we have all the time or do we do as little as we can to get by? We were all children once and what we become in life is due primarily to the role-modeling our parents and significant others provided us. That's why a child raised in bad surroundings with parents who are deviant or even criminal is much more likely to end up in jail than in a board room. And vice versa.

And then there's the ultimate kicker. We've been told all our lives that if we give something all we have, we can walk away proud whether we win or lose and that's just not the case. Because it's the rare person who goes all out all the time. And even if you do, it still doesn't take away the sting of defeat.

We live in a society that hates to lose and so, consequently, we hate to lose too as individuals. No matter the effort we gave, winning is always better than losing. Sometimes we can look back and understand the reason for the defeat. If it's a sport, we can watch the video and see what we did wrong. If it's a business, we can recheck our work or look at the profit and loss statement. But in friendships and intimate relationships, that's not always easy to do and the outcome is never as clear as we would like for it to be.

I fell in love one time and she fell in love with me. I did everything I knew to do to make her happy and keep her satisfied, every minute of every day. But despite my efforts, one day it ended and I never knew why. That's the most bitter pill to swallow. If we know why we lost, we can process it in our hearts and our minds, resolve ourselves not to make those mistakes again and perhaps get on with our lives but if we don't know, it's hard, even impossible to get beyond that loss.

On top of that, some people play by the rules and others don't. Some tell the truth and other's don't, some are honest and trustworthy and others aren't. There's an old adage that says, "cheaters never win and winners never cheat."

Unfortunately, like so many of the adages we hear in life, this one isn't true either.