"Love is patient..."
-1 Corinthians 13:4
I know that I have been talking about sports frequently, but I learn so much about myself through them. I once heard a saying that your character does not show in the good times but the bad. Anyone can be nice when they are going through a good time, but not everyone can be like that when adversity comes. I find that sports is a place I tend to find adversity and difficulty, which is odd because sports are supposed to be fun. While I do enjoy playing sports a lot, I am very competitive and I don't like to lose. I especially do not like to lose when I see that my team is not playing to their full potential.
If you've ever heard my life testimony, you know that in the past I have struggled a lot with anger and impatience. Little things would cause me to get visibly angry and frustrated, and I would often take out my anger on other people or things. However, I thank God that He has helped me become more patient and cool-tempered. Even though I do a much better job with my anger and frustration, especially when it comes to expressing it, I still can become frustrated in difficult times.
As I mentioned previously, sports is a time I get frustrated very easily. This normally happens when I play with people I know, because I expect more from them. I'm the kind of person who gives 100% (or at least 90%) effort every single game, whether it's a pick up game or a tournament. I just like to play hard because doing well is satisfying. During a game, we normally assign people we are supposed to defend. Everyone is responsible for defending one person, and if everyone does their part the team should do pretty well. However, many times I see at least one person not defending their man or not doing their part on the team.
If I see someone on the other team score because they are undefended, normally I am okay with it because I understand that people are not perfect. However, when that same person is undefended many times, that is when I get impatient and sometimes yell at the person responsible. It is very frustrating when I am trying my best to play defense on my assigned person and I see that another person is wide open over and over again. Understandably, people can get angry at me for being so mean to that person, but it is so difficult for me to simply be okay with bad effort.
This is just one example of how things can make me impatient. There are many other things in sports that bother me as well, but now I want to talk about a completely new thing that tests my patience; praise team. As I mentioned in my posts on worship, I can get impatient with others in the praise team. Obviously this is a problem, because you would think I could (and should) control myself when it comes to church matters. As I said before though, I like to do things well, not half-hearted. While this sounds like a good thing, sometimes it causes me to get frustrated at little things that shouldn't bother me so much.
I have been playing instruments for a long time, and not everyone on praise team has had the same experiences with music that I have. Consequently, I notice musical problems that other members don't catch all the time, and I sometimes get irritated and rudely point out mistakes. I find it amazing that nobody really ever yelled back at me, because in hindsight that's probably what I would have done if someone were yelling at me for not doing something I don't even know how to do.
-Smart
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