Giving In To The Passion Of It

Photo by who?du!nelson on Unsplash

So, if I’m honest, I’ll admit that I’d settled into a very ‘managed’ emotional pattern when it came to how I engaged with football (soccer for the non-English speakers) and specifically my team, Arsenal Football Club.  

Arsenal would play their games and I’d watch, but in what had become a very managed, somewhat detached way (most of the time). If we won, that was great and it gave me a nice feeling. If we lost, I might feel a slight twinge of disappointment, but for the most part, I’d just get on with my day.

I mean, I still loved the team, I still followed what was going on, but I compartmentalized my support for the team. I’d put them in a box, so to speak, so that they didn’t play havoc with my emotions. And I’d done this for a reason.

See, years ago, I was, what you might call, a highly emotional supporter. Their play and their results would materially impact me, I’d let it affect me significantly. It was great when we won, but when we lost, I was upset. I don’t just mean a bit upset - I’d be in a mood for a couple of days. If the game meant something, then that mood might last for more than a couple of days. (I remember losing 1-0 to Leeds in the final couple of games of the season back in the late 90’s, a loss which effectively eliminated our chance of winning the league that year. I was disconsolate. I wouldn’t speak to anyone for 3 days, I was irritable - you get the picture.)

Then, when my son reached an age where he started watching games with me, I realized that this couldn’t go on. I needed to get a grip and learn to manage my emotions. It wasn’t fair to him, or my wife, or my daughter (who came along a couple of years later). So I decided things had to change.

So, I took my “Arsenal emotions” and put them in a box, one that I could essentially ‘manage’. Regardless of the result, I was able to stay in control (for the most part). This didn’t happen overnight, it took a while. But I got there (for the most part).

Fast forward a few years, and I’m still following Arsenal in this managed state (and feeling pretty good about it). My son, now in college, has grown into an ardent Arsenal supporter, one who’s passionate about the team, follows their every move, and watches every game with an intensity that seems kind of familiar to me. (I really shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose.)

So, when he came home recently after schools closed (due to COVID), and the Premier League resumed, he and I started watching Arsenal games together. And I noticed something weird.

He’d get super excited watching the game, yelling and screaming at the TV. He’d pace around the living room during the game and get nervous every time the opposition attacked. In other words, he was all-in, super passionate and he showed it. 

And that made me kind of uncomfortable. 

I mean I consider myself a passionate supporter, but I realized I was doing a whole lot less of what he was doing. I wasn’t really pacing anymore like I used to. I wasn’t yelling at the TV as much as I used to. I wasn’t getting as worked up as I used to. Of course, you might say that perhaps that was because I’d ‘matured’ or ‘grown up’, that I was simply putting football - a mere game - in its rightful place in my head.

But that wasn’t really why, and I knew it. The real reason was that I was clearly managing my emotions. I was putting it in a box, so that I wouldn’t have to deal with it. So I wouldn’t have to confront what every loss meant. So I could just get on with things and not have this weigh down on me and my real life.

No, the fact of the matter is that I was afraid of getting hurt. Pure and simple. So I was subconsciously pushing my emotions, my passions, away.

And as I watched my son get worked up, and me get uncomfortable about being drawn back into that passion, I realized that - the mindset I’d been adopting - wasn’t really what passionate support was about, though, was it? That’s not what it meant to have something mean something to you, to give yourself over to it. 

No - truly giving yourself to something, to support something, to be passionate about it, is to open yourself emotionally. To be willing to let it play with your emotions. To be willing to let it take it out of you. To truly love something, you have to let yourself be vulnerable. Yes, it might break your heart at times, but it will also elevate you to levels we don’t allow ourselves to experience and enjoy. Those ups and downs are a part of the game. They’re what make it worthwhile, they give us a sense of meaning, they show us what it is to live life, fully. 

Yes, I get that might seem like a lot to take away from a simple concept such as supporting a football team. But within it, I think, are the seeds of what makes us who we are, and what allows us to live our lives as fully as we should. 

We can’t detach. Instead, we need to commit, to double down, and open ourselves to the emotion. By all means, manage the aftermath of that emotion, put it into context - that’s what mature folks do. Just don’t hide from it.