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This week in Los Angeles, a thirteen year old boy who was playing pony league took an aluminum baseball bat and struck another 15 year old player in the leg, breaking it. He then struck him in the head, crushing the boy’s head and killing him.
The thirteen year old was angry about something that was said; in a word, the other boys were teasing him.
This anger is so sad, and yet who is to blame for this anger? Well to start, the boy is not blameless. For as far back as I can remember, people teased me and told me I am worthless and so on. Even now, people are lined up to tell me of all the deficiencies that I have! OK, I don’t club them to death; I move on, because if they are so eager to share what my deficiencies are, they probably have a few themselves. (Of course these are the people that have a lot of “yes people” around them, and might have a deficiency or two of their own, but never recognize them.)
And what about the parents? Have you seen some of the parents at these things? They act like, “If you don’t win, kid, you are a loser and I will disown you”. They run out on the fields and argue with referees and umpires, and it just makes me sick. And these are the parents that start fights with referees and officials that believe it or not spill out into the crowds. There was a story not long ago about a parent who was beating up an official of the game over a call, and got into it with other parents and people were seriously injured. They hauled him off to jail, where his behavior probably wasn’t changed.
What kind of role model is that?
Of course I want the best for my child, but if he isn’t going to be the next big star, and chances are that he might not be, who really cares. I still love him. I want to do what is right for him, and give him opportunities in the world that everyone has a chance to have.
You don’t have to be a star in sports or other things to be happy and satisfied. Most of us won’t be.
Now I am a motivational speaker, and I say if you think you can, you might, and if you think you can’t you won’t. Chances are you are going to have failure in your life and not be Joe Namath, who I have met and think the world of. Chances are we won’t be a home run king like Hank Aaron, or a Wayne Gretzky, or a Lew Alcindor, (UCLA, fight, fight, fight!), who became Laker great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
The odds of becoming a professional athlete are less than one percent of the population. And what kind of parent do you want to be remembered as: the one that loved, nourished, helped, guided, advised, and listened to your child’s concerns? Or the one who is overly driven, and tells their child “You must do this. You must achieve this,” and think, “This is love because I am tough on you to win, only expect winners.” And you know the sad thing is most of these parents were losers to some degree themselves that are trying to live their dream though their children. I think it is sick.
And now what about society? The paper was quoting people from the pony league saying “We are just one big family.” “How can this happen?” “We care about everyone so much.” Bullshit.
The managers are out to win, the tactics are tough, the kids grow up so much faster and have so much more talent it seems than when I grew up, and they are playing for keeps. These are not friendly games, but games of competition with young men that have not matured enough to know how to completely think for themselves. If they were old enough, they would be driving and boozing and chasing “hot” mates like the rest of us. (Just a little humor-- very little I guess, but I hope you get the point.)
Who is responsible for this act of violence? Me. And everyone else that allows this kind of behavior and thoughts to be tolerated. Teenagers have a tough time growing up, learning who they are and what the world around them is all about. They need responsible people to help them shape their lives-- and that my friends is you and me and everyone else. We are all to blame for this tragedy, and how do we fix it?
We need to talk about personal achievement, success, failure, character, values, and goals. Yet I don’t think schools teach this course. Perhaps it would be a better world if we had started teaching Success Philosophy to all of us many, many years ago. When do you think we should start? Or should we wait to have continued tragedy like this? Heaven forbid we should teach the philosophy of personal achievement to our children.
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