The problem with lack of competitiveness

I have written before...several times...about my borderline pathological competitiveness.

And it is noticed...when my friend Billy was here for golf, he must have mentioned 20 or 30 times how I used to win...and have to win...everything.

It was a trait I was not proud of and I worked hard to get rid of it. To learn to enjoy the process of the game, not the outcome. To take joy in watching others do well.

Now that I am playing basketball again, I find it matters.

Like tonight...I could have taken 20 or 30 shots and would most likely have made the majority of them.

I took four.

The rest of the time I set up open teammates, most of whom proceeded to hoist such horrible shots I was checking the Richter Scale to see how much damage they had caused.

Happily, I walked away not frustrated. I enjoyed the process.

But.

BUT.

BUT.

BUT.

There is still...somewhere, deep inside, but somewhere...that spark of competitiveness left. That desire to win. Not just win, but come out and dominate, to crush, destroy the opposition. To take the ball to the rack and let my expression tell them, "You can't touch me. I am better than you. I win."

If I were to go back to being THAT guy, we would win some games. If they kept stats, I would put up some prodigious numbers.

And I might hate myself. Because with that competitiveness, with that drive, with that indomitable will to win, to push myself and my teammates to our boundaries and beyond...there is a not very good person.

A person who instead of laughing off watching a teammate go 1 on 3, eschew open teammates in favor of throwing off-balance contested threes instead of finding the open teammate, I become the guy yelling at them to pass, to be a team instead of letting them enjoy their game.

So on the one hand, every game I quit paying attention to the scoreboard because A) I know we are losing and B) I know it is by a lot.

But I keep the beast where it should be. In the past.

But wait...my title is the problem with lack of competitiveness.

It is 2-fold.

A) I lose. A lot.

B) I become passive.

What I really need is to figure out a balance. But that...that is simply easier said than done.