YOU CAN’T WIN IF YOU DON’T PLAY!
By Sandye Linnetz
Participation is what gets you outta bed, into the shower and ready to face the day with enthusiasm. If life is a game, it’s a team sport and you, my friend, can participate as a player or a spectator – you choose!
Spectators can enjoy a good game. They can cheer and jeer, eat popcorn and drink a cold one. Some spectators are devoted fans that dress like their favorite players. Some even paint their faces in team colors. Fans have really cool tailgate parties and hats and posters and other valuable stuff. They joyfully bark their great advice to the players and hurl insults at the coaches. Spectators can even show up late and leave early. It’s cool to be a spectator, huh?
Players, on the other hand, get paid to do what they love, while fans just get to watch and pay them more. Life is happening out on the field. Only players have power in the game. Why be in the stands watching to see how the game unfolds instead of being out on the field with the team planning and playing?
You can pat the winners on their backs or have your back patted… Face your fears and go for the glory or play it safe on the bleachers. There’s no right and no wrong here. What do you want? To imitate or be imitated? Safety or the opportunity to test your mettle? To play or to watch? To go for the gold or go for the hot dogs?
When it comes to on-line groups – like “What Do I Say? What Do I Do? – your participation truly matters – when you jump in and share your thoughts, opinions and questions or simply ‘like’ what someone else says or does, you’re on the team and the game keeps evolving. If you like the ‘game’, say so… that’s participation and it creates a domino effect that keeps the action going. If there are no players, there is no game.
You have a thought. You have an opinion. Miracles occur when you share them. You never know whom you will touch or the difference you can make in someone else’s life. And, in that same game, if they don’t let you know they ‘heard you’ – if they aren’t playing – you won’t ever know! How sad is that? No, no one wins if no one plays.
And now I shall quote the great poet, Eminem (Who’s close friends just call him ‘m’):
If you know the rules to play the game, play
Cause when we die we know we all goin’ the same way
Cause it’s cool to be player, but it sucks to be the fan
Even I don’t have anything to say after THAT!