Fatherhood Lessons: Its Not Whether You Win or Lose...

Every year of my son’s life, my wife, Joy, puts together a photo book with highlights of the past year focused around the continued blessed addition to our life, that we share with family and friends, both in print form as well as over Facebook, courtesy of Shutterfly. This year will be no different with the next edition being wrapped up currently, and I found myself reflecting upon a highlight from this past October, when we participated in Montgomery Village’s Great Pumpkin Race.

The annual Great Pumpkin Race is part of the Montgomery Village Foundation’s Fall Festival. The Great Pumpkin Race was a new idea implemented during my time on the Board, and this past October was the first year our family participated in building a pumpkin racer; we had only watched the race prior, which is always well attended. While the concept is simple of building a Pumpkin Racer, there’s the next level of coming up with a theme for your racer, and our son’s fascination with spiders amongst the Halloween decorations led us to design our pumpkin racer as a large black spider, complete with eyes and large hairy legs, though still in keeping with the fun side of Halloween rather than making it too creepy looking, considering our son wasn’t yet three at the time.

The three of us were proud of our spider pumpkin racer, and seemed optimistic on its chances of performing well in the race. The race started off promising, it was cruising along at a competitive pace, and then it appeared to hit an uneven part of the course and veered into the hay bale barrier wall. It can be easy in situations like this to be disappointed, having lost the race after spending time preparing for it, but from the perspective of my son, it was simply fun to participate and to continue watching the other racers. From my perspective, it was fun, and we all learned a lot from working together on our racer, and our racer brought delight to others we met at the event. And that’s really what it is all about, having fun, seeing friends and making new friends at the event, and having worked together as a family, as a team, and looking forward to doing it all over again next year with a new themed pumpkin racer.

In life, you can encounter others who simply focus on winning, and not how they ‘play the game,’ in how they conduct themselves, and if they lose, they don’t lose well; there’s no fun in it for them.

I think it’s an important reminder to always try be a good example to others of being a good person in all aspects of life, where it’s not just about winning, but doing your best, and when you win, recognize the efforts of those you competed against and those who supported your efforts, and when you lose learn from it and recognize the efforts of those who won. Above all, remember to have fun, and everyone around you will as well.

To learn more about Montgomery Village Foundation's The Great Pumpkin Race & Fall Festival, as well as other great activities for all ages, please visit:

http://www.mvf.org