Effectiveness is Relative
I played rugby for a couple years in university. It was a great experience and I look back on the friendships and the competition with great fondness.
The social aspects of rugby can really suck a university-age guy in, but I also fell in love with the sport. It looks like a battle of brutish violence, but there’s much more to it. There’s a lot of nuance and complexity to the game. There’s strategies and techniques that compel entire nations to be gripped by the sport.
One of the things I really like about it is how it requires so many different skills and strengths. Young or old, fast or slow, slight or stocky, there’s a role for you.
As a rugby newbie, I think my path was pretty typical. All of the complexity escaped me. I couldn’t read plays, I wasn’t in position and I exerted tons of energy. In that moment, I was giving it my all. In retrospect, I was sure working hard, but I wasn’t being very effective. As time wore on and I gained experience and started to see the patterns of the game. I transitioned from blind exertion to a more targeted effort that created greater results.
It’s a pretty good analogy for choices we get to make in life, of course. We can blindly exert our energy or we can play with our heads up.
In rugby and in life, it’s easy to attain the feeling that you’re making tremendous strides. I mean, you’re sweating so much, right? It’s maybe a little easier in rugby, though, to see what actually puts points on the board.
