All of the football teams I root for lost this weekend, and you know what? So what!
“Football is life,” goes one of the NFL’s marketing slogans, but, as a matter of fact, it isn’t. Life is pretty much everything else, from walking around the block to helping take care of your aging father-in-law; it’s certainly not three-hundred pound men in plastic outfits banging into each other for the entertainment of mainly beer-drinking high-fiving white guys.
Perhaps I wouldn’t be so down on the sport had any of “my” teams won; on the other hand, their losing surely puts things into perspective. In light of these failures, I can see far more clearly how silly it is to get worked up over the contests' outcomes. It makes about as much sense as being emotionally invested in whether a flipped coin comes up heads or tails, especially if who receives isn't even riding on it.
I have, of course, invested no small measure of emotion in various sporting events; it’s weird, though, and rather unbecoming for a man of my advanced years and professional standing. Do I really want my obituary to note that I was an avid Pittsburgh Steelers fan? Wouldn’t it be even less embarrassing to point out that I raised orchids or painted water colors?
Truth be told, I wasted approximately twelve hours this weekend viewing football on TV. Had I spent even a tenth of that, say, knitting, I’d have a lovely scarf to show for it. As it is, all I’ve got is a bit of dyspepsia from beer and tortilla chips and a healthy case of self-recrimination for being such a slug.
I hereby vow, therefore, to swear off being a football fan from this point forward. No longer will I give a damn whether one group of steroid-enhanced behemoths prevails over another. From here on out, my Sundays are devoted to more important pursuits, stuff that really matters, like baseball!
“Football is life,” goes one of the NFL’s marketing slogans, but, as a matter of fact, it isn’t. Life is pretty much everything else, from walking around the block to helping take care of your aging father-in-law; it’s certainly not three-hundred pound men in plastic outfits banging into each other for the entertainment of mainly beer-drinking high-fiving white guys.
Perhaps I wouldn’t be so down on the sport had any of “my” teams won; on the other hand, their losing surely puts things into perspective. In light of these failures, I can see far more clearly how silly it is to get worked up over the contests' outcomes. It makes about as much sense as being emotionally invested in whether a flipped coin comes up heads or tails, especially if who receives isn't even riding on it.
I have, of course, invested no small measure of emotion in various sporting events; it’s weird, though, and rather unbecoming for a man of my advanced years and professional standing. Do I really want my obituary to note that I was an avid Pittsburgh Steelers fan? Wouldn’t it be even less embarrassing to point out that I raised orchids or painted water colors?
Truth be told, I wasted approximately twelve hours this weekend viewing football on TV. Had I spent even a tenth of that, say, knitting, I’d have a lovely scarf to show for it. As it is, all I’ve got is a bit of dyspepsia from beer and tortilla chips and a healthy case of self-recrimination for being such a slug.
I hereby vow, therefore, to swear off being a football fan from this point forward. No longer will I give a damn whether one group of steroid-enhanced behemoths prevails over another. From here on out, my Sundays are devoted to more important pursuits, stuff that really matters, like baseball!
