I never cared about winning

“That’s okay coach, I can sit out this inning.”

I stuck my finger in the dugout dirt designing remedial doodles.

I didn’t really care about the game.

Couldn’t be bothered if we won or lost. I just didn’t like the pressure of playing in front of all of those people.

Doodling in the dugout dirt was more my speed.

It wasn’t just baseball, I didn’t get what the fuss was about winning. Two hand touch in a friend’s yard, watching other pre-pubescent boys argue till they turn blue in the face.

“Who cares it’s just a game.” I would think to myself.

I certainly couldn’t understand having your mood ruined by a loss, or compromising your standards to win. I had no respect for those kids who tried to lie, cheat, and cry their way to victory.

Winning felt inconsequential—- certainly not important enough to lose one’s self in pursuit of a fading victory.

I found a precocious sense of superiority in this. Thought I was so much more mature than all of the other kids because I had perspective and they did not.

Until I realized, I wasn’t apathetic to victory, I was afraid of it.

I noticed it in college. Stupid things like playing video games with buddies. I’d always lose, even if I was objectively better than the other player. I’d also descend to the level just beneath my opponent’s competence and be crushed.

I sabotaged many good things in my life at that time. Sabotaged good job opportunities. Sabotaged auditions to bands. Sabotaged dating relationships.

I didn’t know how to win. I knew I didn’t know how to win, but I didn’t understand why.

In many ways I still don’t. I find now, as a 30 Year-Old-Man winning scares me more than defeat. As much as I write about winning. Think about winning. Ponder how to win. Or execute tasks to give me a competitive advantage; winning doesn’t feel native to me yet.

I see this even in my habits. I will start running, feel really good, notice improved performance across all domains of life, then stop running. I like running. I want to run. Or I’ll get more consistent with my devotional habits (a struggle that has emerged since I pivoted into the corporate world). I’ll see improved emotional outcomes, and then proceed to stop all of my progress in those areas.

I do this at work. I do this at home. I do this at church. I do this everywhere.

I have learned how to let myself win more and more over the years; learned how to get out of my own way. Learned how to be a man that fights for victory instead of sitting on the sidelines. But I find from time to time that that little boy still would rather doodle in the dugout than run onto the field and try.

In prayer a few years ago, an image came to mind. It was of a lion with a mane all filled with thistles and thorns. With barely any effort, he shook his mane and all the thistles came out.

That to me is the image of what it means to be a man. Thats what it means to win. Using a calm and quiet strength to treat your encumbrances as a light thing, as a small thing, and to simply flick them away.

I spoke with a young man recently who, like me, is afraid of his own strength. I told him “God has made you to be violent. To be visceral. To attack what is evil with the might He has given you. To use your strength to build and protect that which is good.”

Another image: manhood is like a hammer. This capacity for violence is like a hammer.

A hammer can be used to build up and tear down. For destruction and for creation. Both are necessary tasks.

It is good to tear down a dilapidated building to construct a home. It is good to tear down a destructive idea to build oneself in the truth. One must be wise enough to know what the hammer should be used for.

Pretending you do not have a raw capability for strength is to merely live a lie. You are visceral. You are a warrior. You have a hammer, and that’s incredibly uncomfortable.

Hammers are scary. They are intimidating because of how much harm they can cause through misuse. But like any tool it is the heart and wisdom of it’s wielder that determines its moral stature.

If you want to win you must wield the hammer. You must be willing to build and tear down. You must acknowledge, deep down, beneath your resentment or your fear, there is a warrior. There is a victor. He does not need to pretend he is above winning. He does not need to pretend he is afraid. With just a flick of his wrist, a shake of his mane, he can be rid of the baggage that’s been imposed on him. He can be free to run and try and fail and win and lose without having to prove himself. To prove that he is losing because he is good. Or to prove he is worthy because he has won. Merely to be strong, to be rid of thistles and thorns. Merely to have his mane clean.