Stop Keeping Score

Today is the Super Bowl. Now, I don’t watch or even like football, but I do know that the game is today.

There will be a lot of things like scores and goals and all sorts of numbers that matter to people about the game. Those things will matter quite a lot to those people and to people like me they won’t matter at all.

Why do I mention that? Because, in sports keeping score matters and in life, people often make keeping score matter a lot in all areas of their life too.

Confused by what that means?

People keep score in life in many ways such as:

• I did X for you so now you have to do Y for me or vice versa, you did X for me now I have to do Y for you.
• You gave me a gift worth $X now I have to give you a gift worth $X.
• I apologized to you, now you have to apologize to me.
• You drove us 3 times this week, now I have to drive 3 times this week.

And so on. You get the idea. Things have to balance out; they have to be equal and you won’t be happy or satisfied until they do. You keep waiting on that balance to be achieved. You expect it. You demand it.

You add it to your scorecard and wait for it. In fact, your demand is so much that you put other things on hold or on wait until balance is achieved. You don’t move forward. In short, you created “stuckness”!

Is that what you want?

I get it, you want equality and balance and fairness. You don’t want to give up on it until it is achieved.

But in reality, will all of those expectations of people doing what you think they should do for you ever happen? Do they even KNOW that something is expected of them in the first place?

Sometimes you believe that there is agreement in place, but there never was.  It was simply something you took for granted because that is how you have always done it. That may not be the case with the other person, so he or she may have no clue what is expected of him/her.

Thus you may wait forever for that expectation because it only exists for you, not the other person.

So, look at where you are expecting reciprocation from others and ask if that other person actually knows that too.

And also ask if it is really that important.

Let’s face it, just because you give a gift there is no obligation for the other person to give you a gift too.

So maybe it’s time to let go of some of those expectations entirely and move on.

Stop keeping score and move forward.

You might reach a goal or make a home run or achieve some peace after all.

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