Today is friends' day, a brilliant artificial construct by Facebook to celebrate everyone's friends.....and also for facebook to create videos for everyone on their social network. They're not bad videos......using the pictures that people take of themselves, find pics of friends, etc. I do celebrate having friends and being liked by others/ liking others who share the same interest or values, but it's often glossed over the cost of having friends...the sacrifice.
In life, sacrifices need to be made, inherently. Almost every decision one makes is sacrificing something else...the choice to eat pizza one day sacrifices the ability to eat noodles for that same meal. The decision to write in this blog right now sacrifices my ability to do something else in this span of time. Obviously some decisions are bigger than others, and most sacrifices aren't that costly.
In dodgeball, one often has to sacrifice themselves to help the team: you put yourself in the line of fire to protect a more important teammate, or you take the shot at the opposing team's best player while putting yourself in the line of fire. Often though, people don't want to take the sacrifice: they'll do little things to help themselves like hold a ball to block, dodging out the way but blocking the line of vision for people behind them, thus making them get hit; not going for catches in order to keep oneself alive. These are not good statistical decisions; the better strategy in dodgeball is to take the sacrifice, to help the team at the expense of oneself, because the team is more important. The lesson is: sometimes sacrifices do need to be made.
As I grow older, I find myself subconsciously making decisions just because I know the consequences now, and force myself to make consequences; instead of reading over a fantasy baseball article for the whole morning, I force myself to concentrate more on the task at hand. Instead of kicking back and playing a video game for 3 hours, I watch a Japanese movie to further strengthen my language skills while still getting some gratification from the plot of that movie, just not as much as a video game. These are the sacrifices that need to be made to be successful in life, and then sometimes the reverse sacrifice is made: I need to sacrifice some income/ work in order to let loose, capitalize on life, grasp what's in front of me before I lose it.
I think the ultimate sacrifice, which I haven't gotten to yet: settling down and raising and family/ having kids. People in older generations (like in China, where my parents had me) kind of did this naturally, just without thinking, because it was just something to do: you grow up, you have kids. But in the society I live in today and in America, it's not so simple: settling down means leaving behind an incredibly cushy singles life, of doing anything I want whenever I want, of having cars drive me to wherever, to scheduling things last minute and being spontaneous. Having a family as ominous as it sounds (ultimate sacrifice sounds like giving one's life) IS actually giving up a way of life and moving on to a new form of life, a combined life with one's partner and one's family. Eventually I will have to make that sacrifice, but when will it come? I'm starting to get an idea now. Maybe I should have played more video games before that time comes.
Regardless of the way in which people sacrifice, it's important to realize both the cost one is giving up but the benefit of one's pleasure. After all, they wouldn't call it "sacrifice" if there was no worthy cause as a result of the sacrifice, they'd just call it, "wasting one's money/time." So sacrifice! Embrace it, live it, own it.
Just not in fantasy baseball, where the lesson is NEVER to lay down sacrifice bunts and freely give up an out and take oneself out a big inning. And ESPECIALLY not one of the players we own, almost the worst thing fantasy owners can hope for.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
No comments:
Post a Comment