A NOTE TO THE THIRD STRING PEOPLE: DON’T FEEL TOO BAD

There’s nothing wrong on third string, nothing wrong with third string people.

They’re on the team, just not the traveling team.

But they matter to the team as they work to move up to second string.

One day they’ll be first stringers?

Let’s take it one string at a time.

When people show enough enthusiasm for something to participate, give them credit.

They might not be very good at first, but they learn.

If it’s a team with good teammates and good leadership, they learn faster.

Bad teammates and poor leadership? Then they get ignored and discouraged.

Ignored and discouraged is no way to live a life, but you know them when you see them.

Those folks aren’t just living lives ruled by being ignored and discouraged, they’re pissed, angry, and they want you to know it.

As if them being third string people for life is your fault, or my fault.

By the way, it’s not.

Just like it’s not our fault that they quit after being ignored and discouraged.

Now you see people pulling their ignored and discouraged quitter act from one place to the next, one person to the next.

 

No Problem With Quitters

Sometimes life will do you dirty and treat you like you did something wrong when you didn’t.

At least you didn’t think what you did was wrong when you did it.

Not wrong enough for the consequences dealt out.

Before I was a husband I was a boyfriend who had a girlfriend.

Because I got married at the advanced age of thirty-one, I had a decade of girlfriends since high school.

Early on the idea of meeting parents of girls I dated seemed normal.

I met moms and dads in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, California, and Oregon.

Did I represent? Yes, I did.

Was I a cool dude, or a dorky dude?

The answer came from one mom when she asked for clarification on who the daughter was dating.

“You mean the dork?”

Another mom told me in case I was interested, “You do know we have no money. We’re not rich.”

I said I understood, and I’d loan her a hundred bucks until the weekend but she’d have to pay back the balance with twenty percent vig like a loanshark.

Mom was in the backseat of a Mercedes, daughter driving, as we left the West Hills mansion laughing all the way.

The last year or two of freedom I didn’t meet any parents.

I’d finally figured out the audition angle. I wasn’t meeting parents as much as giving them insight into their kid’s personality based on who they brought home.

Was their cherished offspring dating starters or third stringers.

 

Mother Knows Best

If you are married with children you are automatically on the first team.

Now, for the sake of others, you need to put that third string attitude away.

Why raise losers from the beginning when they’ll have their own chance to show who they are.

What to look out for:

Do your kids spend time with dominant personalities they try and copy?

Is their attitude toward you changing?

Are you beginning to think going on about third string people is too much?

 

There was a moment in time where I saw people change fast, from meek and mild, to loud and abrasive.

I was with a bunch of guys flying to San Francisco, then taking a bus to Fort Ord for Army boot camp.

On top of everything else, boot camp sorted everyone out in a pecking order established by the drill sergeants.

The big guys got smaller, the small guys got bigger. I stayed the same because I was a well adjusted recruit with more experience than I gave myself credit for.

Where other guys were breaking down I was warming up.

The amazing part was how wild the quiet, meek, guys got when they were chosen for leadership.

For the first time in their lives they were first string and loved the view it afforded.

One day we were all waiting in line for lunch. During the wait we had to do the monkey bar stuff to toughen up our hands.

I was screwing around since the drill sergeants were busy monitoring the monkey bars.

The squad leader, one of the previously quiet guys, saw me and dropped me for twenty push-ups, which was a surprise.

They could do that? We were fellow recruits and he ordered me to give him twenty push-ups?

I got started and trash talked him through the first twenty. Which led to another twenty and more trash talking, which led to twenty more like some soft guy from who knows where is going to break an Oregon guy.

If he’s been a sergeant or an officer I would have shut up? No, I wouldn’t have opened my mouth, or messed around in line to begin with, but since we were all recruits in boot camp I saw us as equals.

After listening to me for eighty push-ups, my guy had heard enough.

We sat together at lunch.

Him: I can’t believe you did eighty push-ups.

Me: I wasn’t done.

Him: I can’t do eighty in a row.

Me: Aim for doing a hundred and eighty isn’t as hard.

Him: You could have done a hundred?

Me:

 

About That Authority

When people have jobs that are over their heads they thrash around like they’re drowning.

They kick and flail on everyone and everything.

They give ignorant orders, intimidate the wrong people, and use violence before it’s a last resort.

To a third stringer who quit the team instead of going to practice and getting better it makes sense because they don’t know any better.

They stepped away from the ass-kicking you get on the way to improvement.

With that as their guide, they kick ass on old men, old women, and people who thought they had the privilege of free speech and due process.

 

PS:

When you are a first stringer, act like it. Set an example for others. If you feel disrespected, work it out.

Like Oprah said, you have to teach people the way you want to be treated.

PSS:

Think of it as continuing education that goes on and on and on.

You change, they change, but you still have common ground.