I’m not a very competitive person and I don’t think it’s because I’m lazy. It’s more like I’m protective of my time and perhaps feelings. Plus I’ve always been a big fan of doing a labor benefit analysis in terms of effort expended and rewards reaped. Surprisingly this is something I’ve been doing since childhood.
I’m almost certain this, let’s call it a formula for justifying my lack of competitive zeal, was hatched in the 70s. Anyone remember the Presidential Council on Physical Fitness? Well, it was a big freaking deal back in the day and made middle school P.E. a living hell.
This is because in gym class you were forced to do a series of fitness “tests” from the softball throw (which was put into the test, I kid you not, because it was a good measurement of how well you would be at throwing a grenade) to sit-ups and running, lots of running.
Then the results of everyone’s fitness test were posted on several very large pieces of posterboard in the entrance of the school with every student’s performance listed from best to worst. I’m going to give you a second to think about where I landed on that list. Here’s a clue it wasn’t anywhere near the top.
At first I was humiliated but then instead of deciding to work really hard to learn how to throw a softball farther than five feet and “run” a mile in under twenty minutes I had another idea. I would put my energy into joining forces with the other cellar dwellers on the list to make the next round of physical fitness tests a little more, shall we say, fun.
In what I’m going to call my first attempt at community organizing I recruited those not gifted in doing 100 sit-ups (with legs straight, no bent knees. The whole bended knee of it all wasn’t allowed until the late 70s) in under a minute to join me in rebranding the test as less of an athletic competition and more of an excursion into other avenues of achievement.
For example, the mile “run” became who could do the best Monty Python “Silly Walk” and the softball throw was more of a dance move with a step ball chain and then the tossing of the ball while singing “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” from our school’s fall production of “My Fair Lady.”
Safe to say the P.E. teacher hated us and yet other students in seeing the fun we were having joined in thus rendering the test somewhat irrelevant.
I’m pleased to report that the “test” finally went belly up with the Obama administration but its slow slide to being benched started in 1976. The year after me and my merry band of middle schoolers “reimagined” the test.
Coincidence? Most assuredly but I’m going to let myself believe that all over America students were protesting in their own unique ways.
It’s not that as adolescents we were anti physical fitness. For me personally I was anti a P.E. teacher who was a bully and by today’s standards would probably be referred to as a psychopath. I was also against public shaming by posting the scores of the test. By all means highlight the athletic prowess of the kids that did great but to list everyone was just cruel.
Now years later I don’t have any regrets for not being a super competitive person. Would I have been more successful? Probably but I think my mental and physical health would have taken a hit. This is because in the game of life being number one might just be a tad overrated.
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