Difference Between W and L

Yesterday I re-learned the importance of speaking up for myself.

Because I didn't.

And it cost us an L on our tennis score sheet, instead of a W.

As I've mentioned, I'm on a tennis team. It's a beginner-level team; it's only in the last two years that I've learned to play this fabulous sport that I can't believe took me so long to discover. Ostensibly, the other teams we play are also beginners. Yet that's not really the whole story. Some players are actually new to the sport, like me. However, others are experienced, but choose to stay in our league for various reasons - maybe they don't have time to commit to higher-level play, or perhaps they're recovering from an injury, for example. And not knowing our opponents, we don't know if they're new to the sport or actually quite experienced.

In our match yesterday, the opposing team interpreted one rule of play differently from our interpretation of it. Although we have the right to request a review of rules at any time during play, we chose not to exercise that right. I can't speak for my partner's thinking, but as for me, I thought we were right, yet didn't trust myself. And since I'm relatively new to the sport, I thought it might be possible that we were the ones who had misinterpreted the rules and that they - perhaps more experienced - knew better. And neither one of us wanted to make waves, or to be troublesome. So we deferred to their rule of play without dispute.

And we kept playing, against our better judgment.

That decision caused us to lose at least two games. By losing those two games in the first set, we lost that set, which otherwise we would have won. We easily won the second set, and time was running out. Had we won both sets, we would have won the match with no need to begin play on the third set. We would have scored a "W"in!

However, we didn't speak up. So we lost the first set, and won the second, forcing us to start play on a third set, though we had only a few minutes left of play. We fell just shy of a winning - we "L"ost the match altogether.

I could have kicked myself.

And not necessarily over the loss (though I would have much preferred to win). The kick would have been for not speaking up when I knew I was right. (And I was right - I looked it up in the rulebook as soon as I got home.)

This is such a common theme in my life: I prefer not to make waves, then regret not having spoken up sooner. Well, to be honest, I am much more assertive as a 40-year-old than I was as a 20-year-old. I have learned this lesson before.

Sometimes I guess I just need to learn it again.