White Oak Pharmacy Wins 2-1

I watched a very exciting soccer match last night. My daughter is on a fifth grade recreational soccer team and her team is in the playoffs. Last week after two overtime periods, and by one penalty kick they managed to beat the worst team in the league. Several boys on the other team ended their season by kicking the ball directly at the goalie. That's something to live with until next year. It doesn't matter how good you were during the season, or how many goals you had, but how you went down in your final act...or that's what I heard about the CEO's who were at the helm at AIG, Lehman Brothers, and Bear Stearns. Again, intention and desire get thrown out the door. When a manager says, "I hate to have to do this, but because of budget cuts we have to let you go." What counts is someone is out of a job. There is no other side to the story. There is but one truth, action. Someone was laid off. Many times, these days it is thousands at a time. That is really quite an incredible notion, but there is absolutely no consolation in understanding the "why" of it all. It just happened. It is what it is.

Back to soccer--Chiara, my daughter, is on a team composed mostly of, if not all fifth graders. The opposing team was made up of primarly sixth graders. Not only that, the sixth grade team went through the season undefeated, to my daughter's team's record of around .500. The other team was heavily favored, but ended up losing. The tears on the other side of the field were as plentiful as the screams of joy on my daugher's side. What can I learn from all this? Just what has been said hundreds of times before...winning really is everything.