And the winner is...

Every so often I get a look at myself that shows some of the things I don't like are still a part of me no matter how hard I try to get rid of them. Oh, nothing too terrible or evil...perhaps other people don't even notice, I don't know. I know that I DO notice, and that matters.
So take a trip down memory lane with me. This goes back to probably 3rd or 4th grade when I was really getting involved in games and sports.
I have never been the rocked up guy with rippling muscles and all-world hair. I never jumped particularly high, ran real fast, or lifted obscene amounts of weight. Did not matter.
Played a lot of sports. Basketball, baseball, football, tennis. And I was good at them. We almost never had even teams. I think basketball was probably my favorite. And I was never the best player.
Kyle was always taller, faster, a better shooter. Woody really knew hou to use his size and strength down on the blocks. Billy had nice court vision. Didn't matter.
I would regularly play 1 on 2 or even 1 on 3 against people with more natural talent than I had. And I would win. Not just win...crush. We typically played to 21 and usually I won when they had 7 or 8 points. That is playing loser's outs, too. Because I had something they didn't. A competitive urge, a drive, a need to win.
I used to get asked a lot if I was a poor loser. Who knows? Because I didn't. And that extended even to board games. Like this one called "Gammarauders". I just destroyed people at that. Everyone wanted me to lose, they used to gang up on me. One time Kyle needed to roll a 3 or better on 2 6 sided dice to beat me. He rolled...snake-eyes. That was the closest they ever came to beating me. Games just worked for me. I was especially good at Risk. No matter how bad the dice were rolling, I alway came out on top.
And it continued. Competitiveness was part of my nature. I think in 4 years of both team and individual play at the State tournament I lost 2 games. I never lost in Regionals. I beat the people ahead of me on the team. I once beat the coach who wanted a girl on the team so bad that he was helping her. After I beat "her" (in reality him) he insisted it was his fault and restarted the game so she could win. She didn't.
I beat my close friend Mike. Beat him badly, so badly it ended his chess career.
It was almost a physical need to win. I had that fire in my belly to compete, to prove I was better at whatever it was than whoever I was around.
Nowadays I thought I finally had it beat. I have taught myself to be less competitive. Now I know what it is like to lose and I can deal with it easily. Or so I thought.
Sometimes I still get the old fire in the belly. Tonight I was hanging out with my brothers playing Raw Deal. At least 4 times tonight I promised myself I was going to lose the next game no matter what. I won all 4 of those, and many, many others.
This is not something I am proud of. Why can't I just relax and enjoy time with those I am around? Does everything have to be a competition? I am trying to learn patience and goodness, but sometimes there are set-backs. Still, playing that many Finishers was fun...