What I learnt from a 'Goal keeper's red torn underwear'

Several years ago, I was a soccer coach at a certain school in which I was a teacher. One day my team was playing against their fierce rivals from a neighbouring school.  The atmosphere was electric as learners from both schools cheered their respective teams passionately. Unfortunately, my team was beaten 2 - 0 by the time we went to half time. When we came to the second half my time fought fiercely in a bid to make a remarkable  comeback but the opposite team defended as if their lives depended on that match. It was as if they had parked a train in front of their goalpost. It was quite frustrating for my players who were throwing everything at the rivals and even pinning the team to their own half and making it play half ground, but the goal just couldn't come!

Now, the supporters of my team also got frustrated, they stopped cheering our team and turned against that winning rival team. They sang songs which were meant to demoralise the opposition. One particular song which raised an alarm is the one in which they sung a song which was mocking the opposition goalkeeper saying, "This goalkeeper is wearing a red torn underwear". At that moment I quickly instructed the school headboy to tell them to stop all that nonsense. Unfortunately they were singing so loudly that they couldn't hear what he was saying to them. They kept on singing. I stood up quickly and corrected the confusion.  When I arrived near that particular goal post they stopped singing and listened to what I had to say.

And this was my instruction to them, "Look here, your team is trailing by 2 goals to  0  and it badly needs your support.  I don't care if indeed the goalkeeper's  underwear is red, blue, black or purple. Its really none of your business whether the underwear is new, old, torn or has patches. I don't care about this goal Keeper's underwear, I am concerned about my team which is losing there on the field!" I shouted.

Until now, I still have got no idea at all if that goalkeeper's underwear was torn or they were just mocking. However one thing for sure is that we had no business analysing the quality of his underwear. We needed to be more focused on our team's performance than the opponent. I have seen too many people who start to focus on the opposition teams' quality of underwear everytime their team loses. Political parties spend ninety percent of the time telling you what their rivals are doing wrong while saying nothing about what they plan to do and how they plan to do it to improve our quality of life. They would rather spend most of the time campaigning against their opposition "goalkeeper's red torn" underwear rather than focusing on helping their team come up with superior life changing winning formulas.  We get pastors who spend time pulling down other pastors, criticising them on the pulpit instead of putting their own churches in order. The only thing they are stressed about is the torn underwear of the another team's goalkeeper. And all this is vanity of vanities says TheMotivator. Surely it's vanity of vanities and chasing after wind. We get brethren who are so obsessed with a few weaknesses that their pastor or pastor's wife has, instead of focusing on working on the seventeen weaknesses of their own spouse. Then on that corner over there, we have that workmate who is telling everyone about your red torn underwear whilst he/she may not be having any underwear at all.

It's so stunning how people choose to ignore their own weaknesses and losing team, and become obsessed with laughing at "red and torn underwear" of  the other team. Is it human nature which makes us to try and hide our own shame by exposing and shouting about other people's problems? My personal opinion is that someone's underwear is none of your business! Focus on putting your own house in order, inspiring your own team and being a better person yourself. The biggest project you will ever work on is YOURSELF. 

@gwizimotivator
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