Chasing the Elusive Cup

Anyone who is familiar with sports in general and hockey in particular realizes that the Stanley Cup is the possibly the hardest championship hardware in sports to win.  Literally some teams have gone decades without winning the Cup.  My team, the St. Louis Blues, just ended the longest Stanley Cup drought in the NHL by winning this year (2019) and it wasn't for lack of trying over the years.  Anyway, it has been a few weeks since they closed out the series and hoisted the Cup and I have been jazzed up about it since.  If I am having a bad day or just sad, I just go to clips from game 7, read one of the personal interest stories or watch a little of the parade and that's like a bit of an adrenaline shot into my arm.  The mood lifts for a bit.  So, it occurred to me, the elation of their victory and everything associated with it, IS my current drug of choice.  As I've been a huge fan of the Blues for decades, I have devoted countless fan hours, fan passion, fan intensity and in many cases fan cash into the team.  While fans love their team, let's face it, we all seek to see them win a championship.  We devote more time, energy, intensity and money into our team when they are winning.  We do it for love, but we also do it for the ultimate high of reveling in our team's championship run and victory.  For the most part, this is a healthy 'drug'.  But, it got me to thinking...  Are we chasing the elusive Cup and all it promises?  Have we got a taste of the Cup in our lives and are we seeking it at a high cost?

It's very simple from what I see...

Chasing the Cup

• We are chasing the ultimate high, the ultimate lift, the ultimate diversion, the ultimate medication.  We are chasing a dream and all its promises.  Sometimes it lives up to the promises, but sometimes it doesn't.
• We spend countless hours in pursuit.   With our favorite hockey team, we attend games, we listen to/watch broadcasts,  we follow the team, we read the stories, and we just generally think about how we'd love to see them win it all.   In other words, we sacrifice monetarily, timewise, emotionally and in other ways while we ride our team's journey in hopes of getting the ultimate high, the Stanley Cup.  If drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, shopping, obsessive eating or something similar is our "Stanley Cup", we will pursue our Cup usually sacrificing much (or in some cases all) in hopes of 'capturing the elusive Cup' high.  
• The first Cup, like the first buzz for an alcoholic, like the first high for the drug addict, like their first love for a love addict, can be the ultimate high.

Trying to recapture the Cup

• Once we've had a taste of the 'Cup' and we've receded from the high back to the stresses, the worries, and the daily grind of our lives, we wish to taste the Cup again.   We wish to live it again.  We wish to have the good feelings, the good vibes, the thrill and ecstasy of victory.  In short, we wish to replace the feelings we have with the high.
• The Cup gave us an illusion of what it could always be IF only...   In our mind, we know we can't live the Cup.  We know there is no shortcut to happiness/contentment except living the life we are supposed to.   In other words, we can't seek the feeling of the Cup in our lives with shortcuts like drugs, alcohol, etc.   We have to accept that life is work and there are some nice points.  We have to enjoy the nice points, but we can't live in them, demand them or just seek them the wrong way.
• We can't throw everything else aside in our pursuit of the Cup.  It is a noble goal to pursue the Cup in our daily lives, but we can't sacrifice everything else in hopes of capturing that elusive feeling, that fleeting high.  It doesn't mean we can't pursue the high points, but we've got to enjoy the journey along the way and make sure we aren't sacrificing too much in the process.   
• It's nice to have those good feelings--the first/teenage type love, the unexpected good night playing the slots, the vacation in paradise, celebrating with a night on the town.  But we have to keep things in perspective.  Some experiences in life come only once, come rarely and/or randomly, or are costly/unhealthy to grasp for.   If we celebrate a little too hard the Stanley Cup and we feel really good in the process, we need to accept that we can't live the celebration.  If we win at the casino, we have to enjoy our good fortune and not come to expect that it will happen readily.  If we enjoy our trip to Cancun, we have to realize that is something we can't just try to seek yearly.  If we remember our first love and how good that felt then, we can't seek to duplicate it, when the responsibilities of adulthood, family and relationships become work.
• That doesn't mean we can't have the good feelings again.
• We just have to have perspective and the bigger picture.
• We have to realize that some things cannot be repeated no matter how much you want to.
• We have to realize that some good feelings, experiences will happen again, it just may not come in the time, form or certainty that is hoped for.

Now before I wrap it up, I don't want to leave with the impression that we need to kiss all happiness, good times, experiences, or certainty to the curb.  We can still go to our favorite restaurants or watch our favorite movies from time to time, for example.  We can still have the joy that the certainty of repeating pleasant experiences will bring us.   It is more an understanding that of cost...

• Which experiences are healthy to seek repeatedly?
• Which experiences can we 'afford' to seek repeatedly?  (cost is not always just money)
• Will we be willing to accept when it is time to switch it up and not try to hang on for dear life to the known?

Just some thoughts.   It is good to seek the Cup and if you get your Cup, much of the time it is okay to seek it again.  But, don't be blind to everything else in pursuit of it.

The Cup Overfloweth: Spilling out all the angst.

So, it occurred to me the other day that sometime when I'm very upset or annoyed, I will think about and/or express everything that has bothered me for a while instead of just focusing on the irritant of the moment.   Anyway, so I was processing why I think that happens.  I've previously addressed why some small irritation might send someone over the edge in Heavy straws & a broken camel's back.  In that post I was really speaking about meltdowns that occur when a micro-irritation presented itself.  The micro-irritation isn't really the object of the meltdown, but instead was the straw that broke the camel's back.  In other words, it is the irritant that finally destroys a 'brave front' against the thing(s) that is/are really behind the meltdown.

I guess you could say this thought is a corollary to it.   Why is it sometimes when we finally blow up with others including creditors or dealers, that we go over a list of things that have annoyed us.  It occurred to view it this way.   Each irritant is difference fluid filling up our cup (of patience) so to speak.  

When I bought my 2011 Mazda 3, the dealership didn't go down as much on price as I wanted them to.  However, just wanting to get it over with, I accepted paying a couple hundred more than I thought I should.  Anyway, the dealership advertised it as having Satellite Radio in it, which it didn't. I figured it was just because it wasn't turned on from Sirius XM.  I didn't learn otherwise until I called Sirius and we figured it had the buttons for Sirius XM, but not the underlying receiver.  I was annoyed but was willing to figure something out with them (such as them paying for a dash-mounted receiver and service for a period of time).  Also, when negotiating with them, they indicated that another employee, who wasn't present at the time, had the second key.  I didn't care too much as I figured a) I only need one key to test drive, b) I was going to pick up the car at a later point and I'd just get it then and c) they'd been in business for a number of years, so I figured they knew what they were doing.  I found the next day when I went to pick up the car, that the second key didn't work, irritating me more, but they said they'd work with me on it.  Additionally, it had been years since I bought a used car from a dealer, so they indicated they were waiting on the updated title as it was sold to them just a few days ago.  They expected it all to be resolved by within a few days.  Suffice to say it wasn't resolved by the end of the week.  Anyway, they did eventually get the updated title for me so, I got past that irritant.  In addition, I'd never included taxes in the loan and so when they said I could cash the check or sign it over to the DOR (Dept. of Revenue), I figured they knew what they were talking about.  It was a long week and I was tired and endorsed it wrong due to their instructions.   As the temporary tag period was about to expire I finally had enough and demanded to talk to the head of the used car division.  After being told that this person and that person were in a meeting and I'd have to leave a message.  I exploded and told her in no uncertain terms that I would personally go up to the dealership and wait until the highest person in charge was available.   That got her attention and she got a hold of the head of the used car division.   So, he said this isn't normally how business is done that they got the car and the staff rushed it to the sales floor before it was ready.

Next day, with a check for taxes reprinted I went to the DOR ready to title it and found it that the emissions inspection wasn't done.  Suffice to say, I lost it again and the guy in charge said, he'd 'find the paperwork'.  Which meant, we will do the emissions inspection.  I could have called them out on their lack of candor, but since they did the emissions inspection right then and there, I dropped the thought.  They apologized profusely for the whole experience and I ultimately forgave them as I didn't want to stay mad. 

Think of each screw-up a being a small cup which contained different flavored drinks.   Each when added to the a larger cup, would mix together.  Now think of the larger cup being almost full.  If you continued to add small cupful to it, it will spill over.   It wouldn't just spill over the one last flavor, but it would spill over all the flavor that had been mixed in.  The larger cup represents the overall patience I had.  Each small cup represented a screw-up that exhausted some of my patience.  When added, just like the smaller cupfuls would disturb the contents of the larger, cup, each screw-up would irritate me a little more.  The final screw-up not only disturbed the contents of the larger cup, but it caused the larger cup to overflow.  When my patience was exhausted, just like part of each of the flavors would come spilling out, each screw-up came spilling up of mouth when I let the used car manager have it.

Maybe it's just like that for a lot of people, they can take this hit or that hit and seemingly keep their cool, but each hit really tends to pile on.  If they hadn't had a chance to properly digest the individual hits before they piled on, when their patience is finally exhausted they'd address each hit to their patience.

Anyway, just some thoughts for the day.  Hopefully this makes a little sense.  As always thanks for reading and feel free to take from the post whatever might find helpful.

Cheers,
Rich