Truth of the Team

There are some truths that come naturally to us in our lives and some we labor to make our own. To put it in the language of the old writers, some truths are “hard won.”

The truth that I came to slowly, but cherish now, is the truth of the team, the band of brothers, the man among men rather than solitary.

I have walked alone far too much in my life. This was partially because I am an introvert and learned only late in life how to manage it. My heroes have always been lone ranger types who were lauded for being apart, even aloof. It didn’t help that I was a military brat who moved to a new school and a new gang of friends nearly every year. It made me put out vines rather than put down roots.

I can see now what I couldn’t in my earlier years. Settling for life as an overly self-conscious loner made me a shallower person, a weaker athlete, and a less engaging leader. It also made me far less than I ought to have been in the lives of the people I loved.

I wish I could say that one day I realized the error of how I was living and made a change. The truth is that I had little to do with it. I owe it almost entirely to the work of friends who loved me, weren’t afraid of me, and knew how to untie the knots in my soul.

The result is that while I used to be inspired by stories of loners, now I’m guided by a truth I learned years ago about lions and tigers. Apparently, tigers are better fighters than lions. In a one-on-one battle, a tiger will nearly always defeat a lion. Yet if five tigers fight five lions, the lions will win. The reason is that lions know how to fight in teams—in “prides,” as they’re called. Five tigers, though, will always fight as five individual tigers. Never as a group. This means that lions win even when the tigers outnumber them. The lions simply team up, make each other better, and pick off each tiger one by one.

So lions know what I only learned a bit late in life. We’re better together. Lone rangers build reputations but they don’t build people or nations. That takes community. That takes diversity of gifts. That takes a pride of lions.

Go hard after this truth of life. It changes everything. We don’t become what we are meant to without it.

Have a great weekend.