My son Alex is on his high
school's varsity Quiz Bowl team. He's not the Captain, although he does hold
the unofficial title of Field Marshal. (He's self-commissioned, but his coach
agreed.)
He seems to really enjoy the
intellectual competition, but more so with himself. Nevertheless, Alex has a
trait that I quite admire: Whether he wins or loses, at almost any game or
challenge, he tends to have fun.
During the team's most recent
tournament, they won all four of their matches, and Alex reported that he had
done particularly well. "I really killed it today." He also spoke of
his considering the opposing players, and how they might look at his
enthusiastic play and think, Sure, it's easy to have fun when you're
winning.
Then he told us of the realization
that he had: It's not that he was having fun winning, it's that he was winning,
in part, because he was having fun.
Some people never realize
this. Fortunately, many do.
