“You’re not winning this, just quit” I taunt my friend Mike.
“You’re not even good bro” he fires back.
Mike and I had a little rivalry, if you could even call it that. Every week, we would play the football video game known as Madden every week. Mike played football for his school but I didn’t. You might think that he would use having more knowledge of the game to his advantage in our online matchups. You would be wrong.
Every time we played Madden, Mike would make a fool of himself. Falling for every trick play and every juke, and getting mossed on every deep ball. He would beg me to “run it back” in hopes that one day he would beat me.
“If you didn’t always use the best teams” or “if I actually tried I could win,” Mike complained. But even when we used the same team, he still lost. I wasn’t sure what the exact record was, but I had never lost to him.
That changed three months later.
“Can you play Madden?” he texts.
“Uhhhhh, give me like 10 minutes. I’m finishing an assignment.” I respond.
“You’re always doing something, but alright” Mike replies.
“It’s because I’m always so busy with golf, schoolwork, or my job,” I say trying to explain to him.
“You know you don’t have to work, right?” “If you don’t have a job you will have more time to play instead of always working,” he says, sounding as lazy as ever.
“When you mature like me, you’ll realise there are things more important than video games and sitting on your behind all day.” I texted, finally shutting him up.
“You ready?” I message him 15 minutes later after finishing my work
“Yeah, I’ll send you the game invite.” He responds.
I put on my headset, and join the online voice chat system.
“Should we use the same teams?” I asked.
“Nah, I’m using the Dolphins” Mike responded.
“Of course you’re using one of the best teams,” I say not surprised.
“You should still be able to beat me though, right?”
“One-hundred-percent,” I say with a slight chuckle. “I’ll use the Cardinals and still whoop you.”
“Don’t try to use the unfair match-up as an excuse for your loss bro”
“Sure Mike make it happen,” I say challenging him.
The game started off slowly. The plays I used didn’t work so well. I couldn’t tell if Mike got better or if it really was the fact that it was an unfair match-up. Maybe a little bit of both, but I wouldn’t accept that I had simply gotten worse.
Mike’s game was the opposite of mine. He ran plays I hadn’t seen before, he used jukes I didn’t know the buttons for, and he used controls I had no idea existed.
“I can tell you haven’t been playing this game for a while” Mike says chuckling.
“I’m just warming up,” I tell him.
I get a little nervous, because I’ve come close to losing a few games, but I never felt like I couldn’t come back.
Mike won the first game with ease. I couldn’t believe I had lost to the same person I had beaten so many times. The 40-12 score made the loss ache even more. I had never let Mike score this many points. I wouldn’t accept defeat.
“Run it back bro. You’re not beating me twice.” I state, eager to reclaim my throne.
“Alright, but use a better team this time,” he advises.
“Sure, but it’s gonna be too easy for me to beat you now,” I say knowing I needed this victory.
“Make it happen,” he says, chuckling away from his mic.
This game didn’t start off as badly as the last one, but I still wasn’t playing my best. I scored a touchdown. Then Mike scored two touchdowns. I scored another touchdown but he scored two more touchdowns. There wasn’t enough time in the game for me to come back.
I lost 14 to 30.
“Just admit that I’m better now,” Mike said.
I knew what he said was true, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit it.
And suddenly the words began to come out of my mouth “ I accept defeat.”
The game I had once felt untouchable in, was now my weak point.
The moral of the story is to use and enjoy your gifts before they are gone. We have been blessed as people to have certain strong suits and skills. If we do not take advantage of them, we will lose them without being able to maximize our full potential.
The Watoto Speak! 