by Magda Murawska, M.Ed.
So it was another Sunday afternoon in January. The sky was crisp and the weather was unusually warm for this time of year. The possibilities for the day were endless – from visiting museums, to strolling in the park, to spending quality time with family. My Sundays have included very little of that, but a lot of talk about football. Now, to clear the air, I don’t hate football. There have been times when I actually enjoyed watching a game or two. But, since it’s that time of year, it just seams that everywhere you turn, there’s something related to football. Football on TV, football in the newspapers, football-related posts on Facebook. We’ve gone football crazy.
We’re investing so much time and money into this pastime, you would expect that people would spend it enjoying themselves. And many do, using game time to bond with friends over beer and good food. However, even when most people appear to enjoy themselves despite the progress of the game, there is always one or two people that spend this in a state of stress.
So what makes us turn what is meant to be a fun time into something that causes us distress? Very likely it’s the expectations that we place on the game and what the potential result means to us. Of course, we all want the team that we’re rooting for to win – that makes the experience so much more fun. However, when we demand that they win or expect that they do (for example, if we expect that wearing our jersey or not washing our socks will lead our team to victory), we may be in for a rude and unhappy awakening. But if we really think about it, why should our chosen team win? Just like, where does it say that life is fair and the universe fulfills all of our wishes, where does it say that just because we root for a team or do a special ritual, they have to win? Though we may want them to win, we have to realize that we can’t demand that they do so. If we make such demands, we’re going to be very unhappy when our demand isn’t fulfilled. We’re going to be left experiencing the unhealthy emotion of anger, one that does not enrich our life or make us a fun person to be around. It also may end up ruining an experience that is supposed to be enjoyable.
So if you’re one of those people that screams at your TV when your team’s quarterback fails to make the winning touchdown, do you completely avoid football to eliminate the potential ramifications that will ensue when your team loses? That is one option. But an easier one may be to just adjust your expectations. Understanding that as badly as you may want your team to win, there’s really no guarantee that they will. Even if their statistics are the best, the other team can still bring a surprise. What you can expect is to hopefully have a good time with family and friends, or even just by yourself, because whether your team wins or loses, it really doesn’t impact your life directly. That is unless you let it, or unless you’ve wagered some bets on it, but that’s a topic for another post.
