Random Tales From Youth #3

Most of the time, I didn’t have a clue as to what I was doing. Whatever it was that I thought I knew, I only did it half-knowingly. I knew I hated competing, or having to be competitive. When I would play soccer, I had more fun playing skirmishes in practices than actual games, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t have fun at games altogether. I just wouldn’t play as hard if it didn’t feel like it was fun, and I had a hell of a time in some games. I didn’t care either if I never scored a goal in a single game; coach said I was more of a defense kind of person. But still, I wouldn’t have minded if I scored at least one. So how come, on some occasions, I would feel challenged, even angry, when someone else gets praised for being good? During games, when my teammate would score a goal I’d be as happy as he was, but during practice if he was having a good skirmish I fought for that ball like an animal. How come I wanted practice to always go my way? I simply didn’t know why, all I knew is that it was all part of the fun factor. You can say I was a pretty stupid kid back then. I knew that I never wanted for myself to be someone great or greater than someone, because frankly I didn’t know what it meant just like I didn’t know that the word envy existed (yet). All I knew was that play was fun and so was praise. But praise was just a part of it that just came my way, I wasn’t going to go and look for it! I had praise on tap back then. All I needed to do was daydream.