The Conundrum

My dad and I used to coach my sister's basketball team. One season, we had a little conflict with another team. Like most youth league teams, this other team had a bunch of beginner players and only a couple of superstar players. One of their superstar players was absent and we had a good lead at halftime.

During the break, their star player arrived with her dad. He asked the referees if his daughter could join the game. They had been late because a Wednesday night church youth group activity had run a little long. She was already dressed and ready to play and, besides, they were only a few minutes late. The league rules stated that if a player was late to a game and missed the entire first half, they couldn't play in any part of the rest of the game. The teenaged referees discussed it and said they would make an exception if the opposing team (us) had no objection.

My dad and I talked it over and decided that the rule should still apply. Late is late and that is in clear violation of the rules. The girl's father was immediately upset and reiterated that they were late because of a CHURCH function. The fact that my dad was impartial to the excuse implied that the girl was being punished for her religious situation. I resented that although there was no way they could know that my dad is one of the most Catholic people there are. We were dragged to church and Sunday School nearly every week of our lives. If anyone had respect for religious obligations, he certainly did.

My dad simply repeated that the girl was late and the rules did not state that any exception could be made or even considered based on a religious activity. If my sister had been late coming from a church event, he would have brought her to the game late and she would have supported her team from the bleachers, in full compliance with the league rules.

Mr. Superstar was not happy at all and asked why it even mattered since our team was winning anyway. My dad just repeated that it was a matter of following the rules that we had all agreed upon. I didn't say much during all this. I hate confrontation. This girl's dad was pretty loud and acting like a bully. I didn't want any part of it. The girl's dad walked away with an offhand comment that we were only keeping her out of the game because we were scared to let her play.

We'd played this team before and I remembered that she was a fairly decent three-point shooter, but I knew my sister could defend her. I was mad that the girl's dad was going to think we didn't let his daughter play because we were scared of her. To my dad and me, it came down to the rules, no matter what the scoreboard read.

I was glad my dad was there to handle that confrontation. I don't know that I would have had the guts to stand up to that blustery man and his pouty kid. (I probably would have thrown the decision back to the referees, who really should have upheld the league rules in the first place.)

Sometimes, I see my dad like Charles Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie. Sure, he's a little rougher around the edges, but he usually knows what's right and wrong and he stands by his word. As a young woman, watching him take on Mr. Superstar with all the calm of having Right on his side made an impression on me. Family growing pains aside, there are so many instances that he and our mother showed us the right path just by their quiet example.

When you come from a family headed by a man like my dad, you tend to see life through a lens of right and wrong, virtue and deceit, wisdom and folly. That doesn't mean you don't make mistakes or knowingly choose to ignore the right thing when it's uncomfortable, but in the back of your mind, you know the truth. Coming to New York and facing all these new experiences and people has been difficult because my lens doesn't seem to be the right one to use here. Since coming here, I've been repeatedly told that you have to look out for yourself at all times, that you must make people earn your trust, and not expect so much from people. That is a hard thing for me. I was raised the other way around.

I remember lying in bed as a kid trying to understand the pretzel-y worded Golden Rule - "Do unto others as you would have done unto you." That's hard for a kid to say, even harder to understand, and nearly impossible to live up to. I thought that if I could do all three, I would pretty much be a grown-up. When you choose NOT to take advantage of someone, when you choose NOT to cheat (even if you know you won't get caught), when you are forthcoming with the truth at your own expense...that's when you've become a decent person and therefore fully qualified to enter the adult world.

Ok, so that's a kid's view of what it means to be a grown-up, but in real life, I guess that's not what other people are striving for. I am at a crossroads, and I am trying to figure out what to uphold. Do I throw my upbringing out the window and settle for expecting less out of people? Do I nobly try to right every wrong and fight for justice in this huge city of (as I'm so often told) evildoers? Is it that black and white? I just don't know. I wish I could periodically hold up the "league rules" of life and remind everyone, myself included, what is decent and common to all.

But I guess I can't. I don't really know what to do with that reality. I don't know how to pursue a happy life without sounding like a dreamy Pollyanna wishing goodness on the whole world, including that poophead landlord of ours. If the world is what we make it, can we, in good conscience, allow ourselves to give up? When do you just decide to pick your battles?

I don't know.