Is there a fundamental tension between playing a sport “for fun” and also trying to do well at it? I play on a kickball team, and there’s a rough split between the folks who get caught up in the game and play their hearts out, and the folks who continually recite “we just here for fun, right” – I mean the reason people play any sport is for fun, and a lot of people work hard practicing/lifting weights for years in order to do their best and have more fun in the process. Perhaps that’s what separates people with ambition from those without? People who want to do their best (and continue to raise that bar) to get the most out of everything they do, as opposed to those who just show up- and this “ambition” applies to almost everything, not just work or what have you. I’m sure the latter (ambition-less) category has a good time, but what happens when the two groups meet?
Now I’m not suggesting kickball is a sport important enough to have two a day practices and team lifting regimens – just that kickball is fun, and winning is even more fun, so there’s got to be a way to get everyone on board to try to do both.