A High School Football Coach in Texas has been accused of bullying.  The accusation has not been made because of how he treated his players or non athletes at the school.  Instead, the complaint was filed from the parent of a player on a losing team.  I understand that parents are protective of their children, but at what point are we going to draw the line between looking out for and babying.    

Despite the fact that the accused coach, Tim Buchanan, pulled his starters, ordered kick returners to fair catch and had a running clock starting in the third quarter the score ended up being 91-0 in favor of Aledo High School over Western Hills.  If any readers want the exact details of what transpired, visit this link. 

I only have two comments on this head scratching incident.  First, should a mercy rule be instigated in High School Football?  Is a mercy rule actually more degrading than taking a beating for the full game?  

"Don't Follow Your Passion, Follow Your Effort" - Mark Cuban

Mark Cuban, most famous for being the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, has a very interesting and probably extremely accurate take on what one should do with their life.  The entire article which can be found here, says basically that we all have a large number of passions.  What most of us have less of is the ability to put effort towards most of these interests.  His point is very simple, look at what you like and then see which things you are willing to give your all for.  If one of your passions meets this criteria, then that is what you should pursue.  

This makes a bunch of sense to me, yet leaves me with a lingering question.  Why are we willing to put effort towards things we do not have a passion for in the first place?  What I mean is most of us go to work, usually working for someone else and we are willing to put forth effort to do things that we may not even like at all.  Do we do this simply because we need a paycheck?  I suspect that is the answer for a large portion of people and there can be no denying that we all need money to live, I am not debating that.  I am also not saying anyone should quit their job.  I am just asking why don't most people use their free time to work on the things they love instead of watching TV or wasting time on the internet.  Are we scared of pursuing something of our own, too tired from a day of work or maybe its that most people do not have these thoughts.  It is a strange thing, the fact that we will slave away for others with tremendous effort but will not lift a finger to help ourselves.  Maybe we are just conditioned that way?  

I suppose for a good number of people the thought of working for themselves never arises and they do not have these crisis of identity.  For those of us that are dreamers and want to be in charge of our own destiny however, why do we not put all of our effort towards our passions instead of those of others?  Going back to the original point, maybe the question is not only one of effort versus passion, but also a case of misdirected effort?