First Thing's First

It was the 2006 FA Cup quarter-final and Manchester United played against Liverpool. Entering the second half of the match, United had already been 1-0 down. As time went by, I was becoming more anxious and more impatient, seeing that United hadn’t managed to produce the equalizing goal. The hope remained, though. And then, BAM!, Alan Smith fell with a very awkward position, dislocated his ankle, and broke his foot. Sounded scary, eh? United ended up losing the match.

The next day, as I was visiting a United discussion forum, I was prepared to see serial moaning from everyone. But apparently, instead of moaning and whining about the loss, people were more concern about Smith’s injury. Lots of people were wishing him good luck and hoping for a speedy recovery for him. It was very impressing, in my opinion.

What was so impressing about it? Because, in a competitive world where end result seem to be the only thing that matters, it’s good to see that football fans still value something other than merely a matter of winning (or losing). Passion, dedication, and determination—things that Smith had showed (for some people, it’s debatable; but I have my faith in him) ever since he moved to United—seem to be more important. The extent of his injury might have something to do with all the sympathy, but I doubt it if people would be just as sympathetic when the one injured was a player who showed less of those characteristics.

Now, what’s with Smithy’s injury and the aftermath, you might ask. Nothing much, except that it showed me that sometimes desperate measures are needed in order to realize what the most valuable, the most important thing is. Desperate measures which are unpleasant, to be exact. It took a badly injured player to appreciate his dedication, it took a war to value life’s worth, it took betrayal to respect loyalty, and so on. In other words, you often don’t know what you’ve got (or rather, how important it is) until it’s gone.

Of course, everyone has different agenda. Something that’s important to me can be entirely meaningless to others. Regardless of our different agenda, we have our conscience to guide us. If doing certain thing makes you uneasy, it’s definitely not important enough to begin with. If you’ve given your energy and dedication fully over something but you still feel there’s something missing, it might not be as important as you think. Some people have lost their conscience though. For these people, identifying what’s important and what’s not would probably be impossible. I could only feel sorry for them.

So, every time you’re going to do something, please consider this. Is it worth all the effort? Is it important enough? Is it going to make you happy with yourself in the long run? Or is it simply just a total waste of time?

Author’s Note: I know that the Smithy thing isn’t really befitting to the topic of “your most important...” (feel free to fill the blank with anything that you think appropriate). But since I love Manchester United Football Club and have wanted to mention something about United, I decided to insert some United-related stuff here. So, just bear with me....