It's not always easy, it's not always fun but the game continues. Games, the set up is an arbitrary set of rules set out by at least two opponents to crush the other into submission. It doesn't matter whether it is the NFL, the NBA or even hockey. It's all about breaking your opponents will, and exposing their weakness for at least their opponent to see - and at worst the entire free fucking world to gawk at.
This is as timeless as time itself, and as long as we have been upright and with thumbs it has been going on. Sometimes with the most ruthless of consequences. In the beginning (depending on which theory you subscribe to) man was to compete with the world to live. Just to eat was a pain in the asss. Not like today where 3 bucks can get you 2500 of the most disingenuous of calories at any shitty drive through.
But, just like everything in life there is the simple, most elegant of exceptions. Love. Love has been called an addiction, wars have been fought over it, people have died, killed themselves and others to get it. Maintain it. Hold the abstract in their hand. How the fuck can you hold anything abstract?
When love IS the game, who wants to defeat their opponent - or in other words the one they love? But that is the game, right? That is what we have been indoctrinated with our entire lives. It lives within us right next door to Mr. fucking EGO - and that fucker has a mansion. The white house has got nothing on that dudes guest house. So how do you win at this game with its arbitrary rules which have been defined over centuries? Be honest.
Man woman or child, it really makes no difference other than the level of understanding. Honesty. Straight up and without fail. See, the only ego you get to play with, move around and even sacrifice is your own. Ego is that little voice inside your head that says, "let's fucking be right, fuck the world. They don't care anyway". And that dude can never seem to shut the fuck up.
Medical science has tried. Drugs and chemicals are all a means to shut the ego up. Billions dollar industries have been designated to it. Make the one little pill or elixir that will silence the urging, the voice - that will to self sacrifice. All have failed, miserably! But the machine must keep going. Dollars must be spent and made. And for what? If the cats in charge of this project worked for any normal corporation they would have been fired long ago.
My advice, for what it's worth is to check that fucker Ego at the door. We all have to eat a little shit occasionally. Get out the ketchup and go to work. As for the rest of us who have allowed this bastard to proliferate in any part of our lives be it professional, personal or familial make amends now - and don't let the last thing you say to the one(s) that you love is not just that.
Merry Christmas!