Lesson #1: My Humility Is Better Than Yours

There's an old adage about humility, or rather, somebody who doesn't have any:
"They don't think their you-know-what stinks."
In order to fully grasp this statement, you have to say it as redneck as possible.  Don't enunciate any of the contractions, and say it as slow as possible while still retaining some normalcy in your cadence.  Here, try this:
"They don think thur you-knows-wha stinks, Bubba."
I remember somebody using this phrase against me when I was about eight years old, and I have to say, I was grossly offended.
"Yuh huh it stinks!" I shot back.  "It stinks really bad!"
Humility is a funny thing.  Second only to patience, it is the hardest thing to pray for.  Nobody really wants to because we all know what it entails: humiliation.  It takes a shot in the gut to receive it, the kind that often makes you want to find the nearest toilet and vomit.  It's related to embarrassment, a friend of retrospection, and the born-enemy of mankind.  Humility isn't something us humans naturally strive for.  It has to be kick-started inside us, planted within, the seeds of humiliation watered by personal experience and a dying of self until they bloom.
I was five, maybe six, when I started playing soccer in my hometown's recreational league.  To call it soccer is to exaggerate.  It was Bunch Ball.  We've all seen this style of play, the kind only a parent could love because they have a kid on the field.  Well, I guess only a parent could love if their kid is actually trying to play instead of picking grass off to the side or chewing on his/her shirt while the rest of the players rumble by.
My coach that year helped drive the Bunch Ball game plan into our brains every practice.  I remember a handful of these practices consisted of Coach kicking a ball across the field and telling us to run and get it, like we were a pack of wild dogs chasing down a rabbit.  Yeah...imagine an hour and a half of that.  Even at five (or six) I knew it was pointless.  I would have descended into grass-picking or shirt-chewing myself if it wasn't for my mom telling me she would disown me if I ever did.  (Sidenote: She was all in favor of teaching my teammates and I the fundamentals of the sport, but she lost out to the sheer determination -or ignorance- of Coach.  Sidenote to sidenote: I'm only kidding about my mom threatening to disown me.  That came much later in life.)
Needless to say, our entire season was a disaster.  I swear people came to watch us get creamed, regardless of the fact we were five (or six) and only half of us could tie our own shoes.  Somehow, the last game of the season, we found ourselves locked in an epic struggle with the other bottom-dweller in the league.  Most of my teammates were unknowingly trying to blow the game, trying to keep the perfect, albeit winless, season intact with the score 0-0, and the clock running down in the second half.  One of our fullbacks, you know, the position responsible for keeping the other team from scoring, took matters into his own hands by launching an all out offensive on our defense.  I figure the allure of the empty net was too much for him, even if it was our own.  Excuse me, mostly open net.  We rotated goal keepers every game, and for good reason.  Either we were getting blown out and the chosen one to stand between the posts spent the entire game getting pounded by open shot after open shot, or it was unbearably boring.  That day, our goalkeeper, whose name has since slipped from my memory, spent most of the time leaning against a goalpost moaning and sighing loud enough for me to hear at midfield.  It goes without saying it wasn't much of a challenge for our fullback to put the ball into our own net.
After he gifted the other team the lead, I figured the game was beyond reach.  But, on an insuing drive down the field, somebody on the opposing team committed the cardinal sin of soccer: a hand ball in the box.  The ref blew his whistle, and I heard Coach call out from the sideline, "Justin, take the kick."
And, once the ref had paced out the correct distance from the goal, I stood face to face with the goalie.  I'd like to say I growled, that asked him, "Do you feel lucky, punk?  Do ya?"  I was way too focused on not peeing my pants to come up with anything that creative. 
The goalie was big.  Waaaaaay too big to be playing goalie.  He would have wiped the field with us, had he been able to produce his birth certificate to prove he was eligible to play anything but goalie in our age division.  I also recognized him from church.  He was a quiet kid.  Didn't come every Sunday, but I remember him being nice when he did.  What I remembered most was his name.  Yoast.  An uncommon name I've not heard since.  I think it's for good reason.  I was meant to learn a lot from Yoast, and I'm sure God made it a kid with a funky name so I'd remember it. 
The ref blew his whistle, and everything slowed down to a crawl.  I looked right, and I'm sure I telegraphed where I was going to kick.  As foot connected with ball, Yoast went left, apparently not picking up on my tell, and the shot connected with net.  My teammates cheered, and I felt success for the first time.  I felt like a hero. 
That night, at the dinner table, I retold the story to my brother.  Through puffed chest I said, and I quote:
"Yoast was toast!"
We burst into laughter, but our mom was less amused.
"I don't want to hear you say that again.  That's not nice."
So I waited until she had cleared the dishes and had her back turned to us before I leaned over to my brother and whispered, "Yoast was burnt toast."
Now, I bet you're wondering where the humility part comes into play.  You may be thinking, "Hey!  You made off like a bandit in this story with that awesome goal and saving your team from imminent perfection in the loss column."  Things still have to climb to a crescendo before the plunge.  Hang in there.
We had an end of the year pizza party scheduled for sometime the next week.  The house was packed, and several other teams were present to celebrate their own achievements.  I remember sitting in an enclosed room, eating a piece of pepperoni, when this burly guy with a box full of trophies walked by the door.  Cheers went up outside, and in hushed voices my teammates began talking about the first place team those trophies were going to.  I wanted one.  I had to have one.  But who would give a trophy to a team that went 0-9-1? 
That's right.  Coach would.  As we were about to finish eating, she soared into the room with a box full of trophies much larger than those awarded to the first place team, and through a beaming smile, she started handing out one to each player. 
My friend Jason excepted his, but instead of rejoicing, he just sat there staring at it with a puzzled look on his face.  He looked up at my mom and said, "So, if we lose more, we get bigger trophies?" 
That's when I started to feel humility begin to blossom.  Instead of making us feel better for what had to have been the worst season in little league history, it made me realize maybe I shouldn't have been so full of myself after that shot.  I realized Yoast the Toast had at least accumulated one win that season, one more than I had.  In my moment of mocking him, my you-know-what stunk, and I thought it smelled like perfume.  In effect, that trophy was one massive sign with the word "SCOREBOARD" splashed across it. 
Humility is a funny thing.  We have to learn to be humble in winning, and we have to be humble in losing.  It is one of the few things I can think of in this life that transcends both the good and the bad.  It teaches us to take ourselves with a grain of salt, to remember the bigger picture and how it is always, and must always, be bigger than each one of us.  It beckons us to remember a time when we were less fortunate, and to think of those on the opposite end of the spectrum when we reach success. 
But that was soccer.  Maybe if it was basketball, I'd be telling you a story about "Lebron the Loser."
 

If you ain't gonna do it right the first time, don't do it at all...

As I recall, my grandfather was working on his truck one Saturday morning, going through the normal routine of checking the oil and other fluids in a ritualistic, obsessive fashion my generation has never acquired.  I firmly believe (and by believe I mean in the world created in my head because I've never actually studied the disability/behavior...whatever you want to call it) ADD is a phenomena for people my age and younger.  My grandpa could sit there in front of the open hood of his truck for hours tinkering with one part, while I can hardly sit here in front of this screen typing for five minutes without staring at the wall or wandering into the next room. 
Anyways, Boppa, as we had come to call him, was working on his truck, and I was watching, albeit for the short time whatever he was doing caught my attention, trying to understand the purpose of a dipstick and why somebody would name a car part a bad name.  But, I was eager to contribute.  Boppa was not so eager.
"There are other chores to be done around here," he said after I asked if I could help him for what must have been the thousandth time.  "Why don't you sweep out the garage?"
It sounded like a fun activity.  A little manual labor, some dirt and grime to make me feel like a man, so I accepted the task.
I returned to the hood of the car and Boppa five minutes later.
"Finished," I said.  "Now can I help you with the truck?"
Boppa put his grease rag down and looked out from underneath the hood.  The garage was as dirty as ever, minus a few brushed portions behind the Chrysler minivan.
"If you ain't gonna do it right the first time, don't do it at all," he said, returning to his work.
The words stung, and I left the garage with my head hung low.  Such a small point in time, a blip on the chronology of my life, but somehow it's stuck with me like toilet paper to a shoe.  A constant reminder of something I did that stunk to high heaven, trailing behind me long after the deed was done.
And so this blog I dedicate to all those times when the things we do in life isn't the best it could be, so that I, and maybe you, may learn from those lackluster efforts and put forth a better effort tomorrow.  And if not tomorrow, then the day after.  May we be haunted by those memories and experiences.  Not like the ghosts hiding in the attic, but by the kind that make us smile and laugh to ourselves, while everyone else around grants us a ten-foot radius because they think we are crazy.