In the towns of the Wheatland Parish, high school sports are pretty important. There are two schools in the Wheatland Parish, Gettysburg (which for sports is in a co-op with Hoven and plays under the name of Potter County) and Sully Buttes (a school which combines Agar and Onida as well as Blunt). I go to as many games of each team as I can, and I am a big fan of both the Sully Buttes Chargers and the Potter County Battlers.
Once in a while, though, the two teams play each other. It's a big rivalry game when they do, but it's one that causes a problem for me. Each of these teams is “my” team, so I really can't cheer for one over the other. The problem is worse because, when I go to games, I like to yell for my team. I try not to be negative (although once in a while I slip), but I am vocal.
When Potter County plays Sully Buttes, though, I can't yell for my team, because, as I said, each of them is my team. So, I wear a special shirt which combines the purple of Sully Buttes with the red of Potter County, I spend some time sitting with the fans of both teams, and I stay fairly quiet and watch the game.
It's a different perspective for me to watch a high school game where I'm okay with whichever team wins. While I was watching, I noticed something. When I sat on the Potter County side, a lot of fans seemed convinced that the referees were against Potter County and favored Sully Buttes. When I sat on the Sully Buttes side, a lot of fans seemed convinced that the referees were against Sully Buttes and favored Potter County.
The truth is that the referees were neither against nor favoring either team, at least not intentionally. The referees were doing the best they could to call a fair game. They made mistakes, as all referees do, but they did not deliberately favor one team over the other. They had no reason to care which team won.
The problem is that the fans, on both sides, did care which team won. They cared a lot, and because they cared so much, it affected the way they saw the game. For all of us, when we care about something deeply, we cannot view it from an unbiased perspective. We cannot see something from someone else's point of view. Our emotions get in the way. That's as true of me as it is of anyone else. Emotions are wonderful things, in their place, but when they get away from us, they can cause misunderstandings, sometimes really serious ones.
That applies to a lot of areas of life, of course, not just sports. It applies to marriages, to family relationships, and to relationships with friends. It applies to our finances, to our businesses, and to our churches. It applies to faith, politics, and every other aspect of life. I wonder sometimes how many misunderstandings and arguments are the result of that. The more emotional we get about something, the less likely we are to be able to see things from someone else's point of view, and the more likely we are to have conflicts as a result.
We cannot live without our emotions, of course, and we should not try to do so. If we didn't care about things, we'd never do anything. What we need to do is be aware of our emotions and how they affect the way we look at things. We also need to be aware of other people's emotions, and how they affect the way they look at things. We need to understand that, when someone disagrees with us, it does not mean they are stupid of evil. They just have a different way of looking at things. It doesn't mean we have to agree with them, but it does mean we need to respect them. We need to understand that good people can have disagreements because of their different perspectives, both on the subject in question and on life itself.
It's okay to have opinions. It's okay to believe our opinions are right. It's even okay to try to convince other people that our opinions are right. But we need to remember that other people have other opinions, and they believe their opinions are right, too. We don't need to agree with them. But we should treat them with respect.
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