Day 20: Sports and Competition

I am a very very competitive person. Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I love to win. I love to play sports and games. So I am thankful for sports and competition today :) Thankful for the softball teams and volleyball teams I have been on since I came here. Thankful for the friends I have made playing sports. Thankful for the fun and the laughs. Thankful for the undefeated fall ball season. Ha! I am thankful for my new goal of running the half marathon and that its teaching me a new kind of competition and motivation. One that is with yourself rather than against others. I love conditioning and training my body and pushing myself. I love the high of winning and the tense moments and the camaraderie. It is all awesome. Losing sucks but you always learn something from it. You always figure out what you as an individual need to work on and what your team needs to work on.

I feel like with sports and athletics... I can always get it. I might not be good right away but there is this idea that more practice and more time will improve you. I am naturally athletic and coordinated which definitely helps me think about sports this way but it is a place in life where I feel comfortable. I feel confident. I feel like an important part of what is going on even if ultimately a game is pretty insignificant. It is hard to explain. But it has just always been something that I have connected with. It is a way that I can meet people more easily and build relationships. In pretty much all other areas of life I feel inept at making relationships. But there is something simple about teamwork. Something that forces interaction and communication. And for these and about 100 other reasons, this is why I will play sports and enjoy competition until I am 99 :)