Sports Collecting the Way It Should be!!!!

[EurekaDave]

I got into it with a forum member today. Details are not important but it got very vitriolic. He was never going to deal with me again. I was going to trash him on GUU.

Then I had an epiphany. With half the nation baking in record heat or being drenched by a "super derecho," --- what is a little spat about a "game-issued" Suzuki jersey?

So I said, "I'm sorry." And that's the end of it.

das1721@att.net

[godwulf]

Good move, and a smart one, if I may say. Sometimes I think we all tend to lose sight of the relative importance (or non-importance) of things that we say and do in terms of our hobbies and interests. With all the turmoil and genuine conflict in the world, combined with the real drama and problems that most of us seem to encounter on a regular basis in our personal lives, it's really amazing sometimes what we can let ourselves get upset about.

I got a PM from a guy I know on another message board this morning - someone with whom I disagree regularly about a number of things, but someone whom I also respect a great deal. Former Army special forces, the man is. Early Saturday morning, in the course of doing his job, he was deliberately run over, twice, by some stoned idiot in a car - both legs broken, one pretty much shattered, and he may lose a foot.

No, all of our troubles and obstacles are not of that magnitude, but...we're all just people trying to get through life the best way we can manage, and 99.9% of the time we have no idea what kind of struggles the person on the other side of that screen may be having. It probably wouldn't hurt if we all just occasionally took a deep breath and looked inward a bit - just to make sure that our perspective and priorities are where they should be.

[coxfan]

I totally agree with godwulf's excellently-worded remarks. Hobbies should be a constructive way of letting people enjoy something together, and at least briefly get away from the health, family, and financial challenges every human faces, or will face at times in life. In my own family we've had plenty of the above, and my several hobbies, including but not limited to collecting, are an important refuge to enjoy at times during the day, while still dealing with everything else.

In my 33 years as a psychologist I may not have heard every kind of problem known to humanity, but I probably heard a good percentage of them. Any successful, strong person can become temporarily suicidal when his/her world unexpectedly starts to collapse for any of many reasons. And our society unfortunately builds as many barriers, as it does bridges for people who need to reach out for help.

And I commend the moderators of this site, for keeping it much more positive and constructive than many Internet sites.