Sports ≠ Competition - By Vivek Mani, 2014 TFI Fellow

It is the latter one which is making majority of us not have sports as an important part of our lifestyle. We have stopped playing games because we are made to see competitions as the logical conclusion for it. We don’t consider ourselves good enough, which many of us cover up telling “this is not my field of interest”. Really......! You have always loved playing games. You just didn't love the competition part of it.

 This has made sports very less sportive. Sportsmanship is something that most of us lack today. We have turned everything into a competition. Always trying to get to the top. Envying those who have made it there. Scheming against the better ones. Crying for not doing better, etc, etc, etc.

We are drilling this into our kids too. Remember your parents scolding you for playing for an extra hour when you were a kid?? They now scold you for not playing at all! What are we, the current “grown ups” doing about it? Well, nothing different actually. Even we sometimes tell our kids “there is nothing to be gained from playing games”. We couldn't have been more wrong!

So my love, let us take a break and saddle up. Saddle up to break some sweat on the pitch, not to beat anybody’s points, but just for pure joy of sports.

Lets be sportive.