Be a Connoisseur of the Mundane

The happiest people are.

It was the climax of the season. We were neck and neck to win the title against our arch rivals. It all came down to this game.

To the winner — all the glory of a 5th division Tasmanian Football Association premiership.

The loser would be forgotten by history.

Actually, the winner would also be forgotten by history. History didn’t care at all. But it seemed otherwise. It seemed important.

At this pivotal moment, fate put an offer on the table.

For some reason, on this day our opponents couldn’t field a team. Maybe some of their players had to work. Maybe they got lost. Maybe they were hungover. Who knows? History has forgotten that detail.

The fact was that they couldn’t play. They had to forfeit…

…unless we agreed to reschedule the game.

If we enforced the forfeit, the title was ours. If we agreed to reschedule, we were back to a 50–50 chance.

What a dilemma!

We put it to a vote amongst our team.

For some, the temptation of that unearned glory was too much and they voted to enforce the forfeit.

But the majority remembered that the point of playing soccer is actually to play soccer — ideally as well as we can. We agreed to reschedule.

The only kind of person who doesn’t chase easy wins

We might not all scale the heights of Div 5 regional football, but we are all faced with the temptation of easy wins. Of unearned results.

Where?

In anything we don’t savour. Anywhere we go through the motions. Anything we resent. Anywhere we rush, procrastinate, zone-out, distract. Anywhere we over-indulge.

In fact, the only people who don’t chase the easy, shallow wins, are connoisseurs.

Parents don’t rush their kids into adulthood. They cherish the process.

True artists don’t mass-produce trinkets. They savour their craft.

A real opera-lover doesn’t tick boxes of operas attended. They are pierced to their core by the exquisite nuance of each performance.

Children engage deeply in everything they do. For them, it’s all play — results are beside the point.

All of these people, these connoisseurs, these lovers, recognise that the result they really seek is a deep, intimate connection with the game they are playing.

Outside of this, all results lose their meaning. They can’t satisfy. Like a chocolate devoured mindlessly only leaves us wanting another one. Like an unearned trophy.

Of course, some things are easier to savour than others. But regardless, the logic holds.

Be a connoisseur of the neglected moments

So much of our life is made up of the small, the trivial, the mundane. Most of it, in fact. Can we learn to savour these often neglected moments?

Because no-one lives so fully as the connoisseur of the small. And these small moments are the game we signed up for.