Sunday Ramble

Last night was one of my fitful, sleepless nights. To keep from disturbing the 'hub', I moved into the living room to watch T.V. Early this morning, I watched a 1999 movie called "For Love of the Game", starring Kevin Costner.
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The movie centers around a baseball game in which Costner's character of Billy Chapel is doing the impossible: pitching a perfect game. The development of the story is critical, because if we didn't understand what baseball meant to him, we'd have a hard time accepting the idea that he could put baseball ahead of everything that was dear to him....a potential wife and daughter and all that a personal relationship would entail.
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The movie may be about baseball, but it's also a story about discovering what's really important in life, and what many give up for their dreams.
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Whether a person is a celebrated baseball jock or an everyday soda jerk...if that is a passion in life, that is truly to what a life will be devoted, taking precedence over all else.
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Billy Chapel was a 'driven' person, aiming to succeed and be the best at all costs. That is the character and intent of those who become stars and celebrities. He (Chapel) makes the comment to his estranged significant other, "It's not if you win or lose; it's how you play the game".
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Now, this philosophy sounds good, but theoretically, is it really true? I doubt it. If the writer of the movie had chosen for Chapel's team to lose that last game, the whole ending of the movie would have changed. How would he have handled a loss? Sank into a state of depression? Taken to alcoholic binges? Drugs? And to an extreme measure...a possible suicide? This is pretty far-fetched, but possible.
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For a person driven to be the best competitively, yes, winning is the goal. To get that person to admit that "it's how you play the game" is an insult. To be the best you can be means winning the game.

Are you a 'driven' person?

Do you know a 'driven' person?

For those of you who say "Yes, In_spired must be a driven person!"(lol) Guess what? You're wrong, wrong, wrong! I'm one of those who say, and mean it...

"It's not if you win or lose; it's how you play the game".