Love Bomb

Back-to-back posts?!  Well, you already know from the earlier post that I didn’t intend on saying anything meaningful about Valentine’s Day.  At least, I didn’t intend on saying anything meaningful involving my role in the day; I’m still in “personality rehab” and actually picked a great year to be relatively completely undateable (you know, given my total incompetence over the last year or two telling people how I feel and the fact that I work 50+ hours a week semi-managing 14 wonderful individuals).

Unlike Foreigner, I'm not interested in knowing what love is.

Oddly enough, this probably led to me having a great day today.  For years, I went into Valentine’s Day wanting to make something out of completely nothing.  I’ve never been one of those types to like Valentine’s Day, but I wanted to so damn bad.  Every year it was an ultimate bust.  So I decided a few years ago to just remove myself from the situation… but that just turned me into a Love Hater.

A violent one at that too, just to keep up with the theme of the day.

While being a Love Hater was going to save me the hard lessons of the past, writing about it just didn’t feel good.  I generally don’t like to appeal to pathos.  Even when I complain or rant about something, I try to generate energy and action (or outrage or laughter).  I look back at my anti-Valentine’s Day posts of the past and I cringe!  But it is what it is.  Even talking down on Valentine’s Day was a hard lesson:  While it’s nice to commit to not being stupid on Valentine’s Day, I still needed to find a way to constructively make something of Valentine’s Day.

Patience is a virtue?

This is where it gets to be about relationships: I get complimented on my patience often.  It is true that I wait on a lot of things for long periods of time.  I generally do not mind waiting.  But through all of the waiting, I’ve developed a good quote:

Good things come to those who wait.  Better things come to those who just take it.

Most of you know I’m fairly decent at breaking sports down.  And most of you know that I have a habit of connecting things that generally have nothing to do with each other.  You’ve heard of Love & Basketball; allow me to introduce Love + Football.

A screenplay.

In football, you have an offense and a defense.  To be offensive-minded, you put up a lot of points; to be defensive-minded, you don’t want to give up any points to the opposing offense.  If this sounds simple, good, because this may get complicated.  If the game is close at the end, the winning team may have the ball with the lead and find itself with two options: A) Play to win the game by telling the offense to put the final dagger in the coffin, or B) play not to lose, and be content to let the defense.

In option A, you are creating ways to make sure you are controlling the fate of the outcome.  Messing up could put the team in a precarious position, but generally players always appreciate the opportunity to win the game themselves.  While option B is also considered sound strategy for its safe, conservative approach, it leaves the offense to playing a less than exciting role in the outcome of the game, and it gives another team’s offense to win a game.

In relationships, there is offense and defense.  The offense is what puts points on the relationship board: what is attractive and what keeps the relationship fresh and exciting.  Or, when the defense is leaky, what keeps the relationship alive.  The defense of a relationship?  Well, let’s just say a good defense does not allow for the unhealthy things in a relationship: abuse, disrespect, jealousy, envy, etc.  For years, I’ve been working up a decent defense.  But I take “Option B” a lot.  I wait on things to happen, and that gets me in trouble.

Getting passed over like there's blood on the door.

So what made today worth talking about?  Two things.  For one, I didn’t have to worry about wasting anyone’s time today and in turn, potentially upsetting them.  That’s still a defensive comment (and one that I probably won’t look back on too fondly), but one that allows me full awareness of the fact that I need to step my game up in a lot of areas (hence, “personality rehab”) and that maybe I’ve learned what not to do finally.  I feel good (and better) about the fact that there is nothing wrong with Valentine’s Day; just my past errors in judgment involving the event!

But more than my own epiphany, I got to spend the day with my team serving on a Monday.  And I love my team.  At least, I love my team enough to do Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” dance with half of them in order to kick off the hype for our “Drug Free Dance Off” event in our after school program.

Caught in a bad romance.

Needless to say, I had fun today.  Remember, the materialism of Valentine’s Day shouldn’t make anyone feel bad.  It is always better to find a way to be happy about something or for somebody than it is to waste energy on the day.  Be happy, be better, and love better.

Or, just wait for me to release an article on the NBA soon.

-1SKILLZ