If I Let You Come Inside, Tomorrow Will You Hide, Will You Be There For Me, When I Need Someone To Hold

--"Don't Walk Away (cover)", Nikki Deloach and the MMC

I am starting up the new season of Fantasy Football next week. Even though my interest in the whole fantasy sports craze has waned with the advent of my renewed love of board games, I'm still intrigued enough to put myself through at least one more season. The only problem is that my co-worker who I talked into joining this league last year has decidedly been less interested in re-upping this year. That would be all well and good, but it's a keeper league. Players are kept on one's team from year to year. For him to quit would mean finding someone new who would also be willing to take over somebody else's team, which is not an easy thing to do. On one hand, yes, it is Fantasy Football, merely a game. On the other hand, though, one of my very first questions to this co-worker last year was if he'd be willing to stick it out for the long haul--maybe four or five years consecutively.

I'm probably the last person to talk about fulfilling one's commitments. Almost everything I've started I've quit eventually. However, the reasons for these betrayals are wide and varied. Most do not involve my just giving up the cause, but rather giving up on the people involved.

I think that's the difference between me and most people. I don't give up on ideas, I don't walk away from philosophies easily. I'm a very big devotee of certain concepts that I believe I've always held. When it comes to people, though, I tend to chafe once people's idiosyncrasies begin to get in the way of main. Maybe that is a sign of anti-socialism, maybe I am too set in my ways to acknowledge that somebody else's work habits might be more efficient and more up to the task than my own, but whenever I hear somebody try to edit out how I do each and every minute task of my day, that's when I tend to walk. It happened with Boy Scouts, it happened with piano lessons, it happened with friendships, it happened with online forums, it happened with a lot of various groups I've joined and turned my back on. I still believe in whatever it was that led me to join up in the first place, but the collective decision-making process and the constant critical mentality that pervades groups of any size makes me often tremble. I guess I've just never gotten the hang of letting go of my ideas in favor of what the majority might think is best. I guess I've just never gotten good at saying, "whatever you guys want to do."

That's why I don't understand why my co-worker can't get on board with this whole Fantasy Football thing. He's said he liked everyone involved. He's said he had fun last year. As long as you like the people and as long as you still like what they stand for I don't see any reason for walking away. It just doesn't make sense for me. To me that'd be like abandoning ship when it's destination is the same as yours. In fact, I've even stayed at projects longer than I should have simply because I have liked the people so much. I worked at the bookstore three years longer than I should have just because that was the funnest and closest crew I've ever worked in at any job. Good companions can solve almost any problem just like bad companions can ruin any endeavor.

That's who you should be loyal to, the people that you get along with. And that's who you should chuck out with the morning trash, people whose only goal is to disagree with you and make you feel like you have no place alongside them.

Just like Fantasy Football, you don't abandon your team when they need you the most. You abandon your team when it's clear nobody wants you around any more.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers