Sojourner
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2012
- Messages
- 2,610
I was thinking recently about this whole issue of watching sports on TV. My college football team this year did quite poorly (far worse than preseason expectations), so this led me to start wondering if I was essentially wasting my time by watching their games every Saturday, hoping for the wins but almost always suffering through the losses.
It dawned on me that there seems to be a noticeable difference in the degree to which a loss affects your mood more than a win. This is especially true if your team was expected to win, but even if that's not the case, a loss seems to darken the entire day. With a win, it's like a momentary spike of happiness and satisfaction, but then you kind of forget about it and move on with the rest of your day. The loss, though, seems to hang around in the back of your mind and you keep thinking about "what could have been" or "what should have been".
So with that in mind, yeah I have been questioning my continued devotion to watching things like college and pro football, and pretty much any other sport where I have an emotional stake in the outcome. What is it really doing for my life? Is it overall a net positive or negative? I'll probably keep watching since it's become such a habit over the years, but I can easily see myself spending less and less time tuning in on a regular basis.
It dawned on me that there seems to be a noticeable difference in the degree to which a loss affects your mood more than a win. This is especially true if your team was expected to win, but even if that's not the case, a loss seems to darken the entire day. With a win, it's like a momentary spike of happiness and satisfaction, but then you kind of forget about it and move on with the rest of your day. The loss, though, seems to hang around in the back of your mind and you keep thinking about "what could have been" or "what should have been".
So with that in mind, yeah I have been questioning my continued devotion to watching things like college and pro football, and pretty much any other sport where I have an emotional stake in the outcome. What is it really doing for my life? Is it overall a net positive or negative? I'll probably keep watching since it's become such a habit over the years, but I can easily see myself spending less and less time tuning in on a regular basis.