Here’s a chewy question for you today:
If you had to choose between being the best player on the worst team or the worst player on the best team, which one would you choose? And why?
I’ve been pondering this one for a few days and still cannot decide.
Updated to add: Think about this on a macro level. Do you want have the best house in the neighborhood or the worst house in the nicest neighborhood? Do you want to be a top student at a not-so-good college or be a mediocre student at one of the best universities? Etc., etc., etc.
Can I be the mom of the best player on the worst team, so I could impart lessons about helping others and sharing time and skills?
I’m with you – it’s a tough one. I’d like to say the worst player on the best team so that I could learn from my teammates, but part of me also says, I don’t care whether we win or lose, I just want to SHINE.
Worst player on best team. I’m applying the logic that you never want the best house in the worst street, you want the worst house in the best street so you can improve it.
Having lived in a gorgeous rented house with a walled garden years ago that was like Fort Knox because the surrounding area was awful, I’ve tried to live by that!
worst player on best team. I play up a level that way.
Wow, this is a hard one! I’m not very athletic and in high school I really tried to play sports. I was not very good. So I think this time I’m going to say best player on the worst team.
I say best player/worst team just because the other way around I would always feel like I didn’t measure up.
The key is “fun and supportive of the player”. Either sit. can be good or bad. We “play” a game. Play is supposed to be fun.
I’d be the worst player on the best team. At least that way you’d have something to work TOWARDS.
My daughter has been both in her soccer “career” and I would say it is far better to be the worst player on the best team: this creates an opportunity to learn, aspire and improve, while checking the ego. Being the best player on the worst team is extremely frustrating.
And you definitely want the worst house on the best street…from a resale value/investment perspective ( in a normal market I would add ).
You are torturing my brain!!
I guess if you’re in the company of people that are better, you’ll grow and up your game, right?
This is easy. I want to be surrounded by excellence with the opportunity to grow.
I can’t decide this one either. My initial gut reaction was best of the worst, but when I think it through I lean more toward worst of the best. Tough one.
Worst player on best team. Because then people would know you and you’d get a championship ring.
As for the house, though, I’m not sure I’d want the worst house in the best neighborhood.
Easy decision here. Worst player on the best team. I’ve done both – best player on my vball team, worse player when I started playing hockey.
I’m too competitive. I love to win. So if I can learn and help my team win, awesome. I don’t do as well trying to pull the rest of my team up. I just get overly frustrated.
As we consider our son’s high school options, I am running into the same dilemma. Thanks for the food for thought.
I always wanted to be the best at something. I figure I could help others improve. I’ve been the worst for 40 years and that’s long enough.
I had a boss that used to say “Surround yourself with the best people, they will make you look good.” So I’m going with the worst player on the best team. Every player (including the ones that didn’t play) on the Pittsburgh Steelers roster has a SuperBowl ring
I prefer to be a small fish in a big pond–I’d much rather be a nobody in New York City rather than queen of society in some small town, so it’s worst player, best team for me. The only exception is, I’d choose to have the nicest house in a bad neighborhood because I like to feel that I’m in the vanguard of a changing neighborhood.
Worst player on the best team, please. I am intrinsically lazy and would prefer to coast on my team-mates’ achievements than have the stress of being the one responsible for keeping up the standards!
I’m not sure. I keep going back and forth and both of my reasons make sense to me. Oh the choices.
Definitely worst player on the best team/worst house in the best neighborhood. At least then you have something to work toward. If you’re already the best where’s the fun in that? (Written like someone who has obviously never been the best on any team!)
Worst player on the best team – it would make me work harder.
Worst player on best team. I already have the worst house in the best (or at least one of the better, highly desirable) neighborhood…
I figure it’s much harder to get onto the best team than the worst team, so even if you’re the worst player, you’re already light years ahead of the best player on the worst team.
Being a big fish in a little pond is boring, constricting and stultifying. Been there, done that. It lacks challenge and room for growth. It’s too easy for people to rest on their laurels when they haven’t, in fact, achieved much of anything.
In order to be the best you can truly be, you need the opportunity to continue expanding, reaching farther, testing yourself, which is difficult (and sometimes impossible) to do when you’re the best player on the worst team.
In a nutshell, I believe that it is aiming higher and achieving more to be the worst player on the best team than vice versa. Which is important to me, but not necessarily to everyone else.
I do not want to have the worst house in the best neighborhood. I would be ‘that’ person and no one would like me and I wouldn’t have many neighborly friends.
Mediocre student at the best college is okay – no one looks at your grade to give you a job. Prestigious schools open lots of doors.
Sports? Bah! I don’t do sports.
Great question!!
Either way would be so frustrating–either you’d be upset with losing or upset with looking like an idiot.
Probably worst player though. But it would hurt.