Not everybody's worthy

I've always loved sports and played most of them when I was younger. I was a three-sport letterman in high school and made the police Olympics team in tennis while serving on the Tulsa Police Department. The one sport I didn't excel in was track and field.

I tried but it just never worked. I wasn't fast enough for the sprints, didn't have enough endurance for the distance races and could never find a field event that suited my talents either. So even though I went out for the team every year, I never made it because I wasn't GOOD enough to make it.

We also had traveling squads in high school sports and you had to qualify to be on the traveling squad through your ability in that sport. There were always a lot of guys going out for a sport because, in part, girls liked athletes. A lot of these guys didn't have much athletic talent but they could say they were on the team. Girls wised up to this tactic pretty quickly and would ask the guy if he was on the traveling squad when he told her he was on the team because that was what made you an athlete; earning your way on the traveling squad through your performance.

In other words, nothing was given to us. We had to earn our spots on the starting lineup or the traveling squad through performance. Showing up wasn't enough.

But now we have a culture that rewards just showing up. It is not unusual in sporting and academic events across the country for everyone to get a medal that participated. The logic behind this is they don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. From a parent's perspective, I understand that. No parent who loves their child wants their child to be hurt, either physically or emotionally. But by the same token, most parents realize that no one can live this life WITHOUT being hurt from time to time and it's important that we learn how to live with that.

Disappointment is a part of the game of life. I've gotten a lot of what I wanted out of life but some things I DIDN'T get. I made some teams, didn't make others. I got some jobs, didn't get others. I excelled in some areas, didn't excel in others. I got some girls, didn't get others. That's life. Life is filled with ups and downs, successes and failures, bumpy roads and smooth roads and we have to learn how to navigate all of them.

But what does a child learn when they get a medal or a ribbon or a trophy for just showing up? That requires no effort, no determination, no ability and no desire to get better. It just shows a willingness to transport your body from one space to another with no further effort needed. Kids these days have rooms decorated with their medals, ribbons and trophies who have never won anything in their lives but you look around their rooms and they look like heroes. And more importantly, they FEEL like heroes.

And then they go out into the real world and they find out that nobody gives them anything; they have to work and sacrifice for everything they achieve when they've never been made to work and sacrifice for anything up til now.

So guess how that turns out? They don't know how. They were never put in a position where they were disappointed enough in NOT achieving something that they worked harder and sacrificed more of themselves so they COULD achieve it.

We see this in college classes often. At the end of the semester after not accomplishing much if anything in class, students come into your office and ask you to just give them a C so the class will transfer. It's an entitlement they feel they should have because they've been given other things in their lives growing up without earning them so that's their expectation with their grades as well.

Life is full of disappointments and letdowns. The competitors get back up, dust themselves off and compete again. The kids who have always been recognized even though they achieved nothing expect you to bail them out.

Two different preparations with two different outcomes. One is good, the other is bad!