Actually…
"Actually, nobody owes you crap." That's what the bumper sticker on the otherwise nondescript Geo Prism at the stoplight in front of me said. I laughed out loud when I read it. Then I started chasing rabbits while waiting for the light to turn to green.
“Who,” I wondered, “is driving that car?” I strained my neck to see what I might learn. “Is it a he or a she? Young or old? (Or in between like me?) Is it a soccer mom? What if the driver is an executive on her way back to the office after lunch? Did the person behind the wheel buy the Prism from a used car lot, and the sticker just came with it? Was it even the driver’s car? Maybe it had been borrowed from a throwback hippie aunt?
I was captivated by the origin of such traveling billboard chutzpah. I was grateful for the reminder that we must all continually earn our keep. And I immediately started thinking about how much time we squander trying to figure out fair.
Walking around with an unpaid invoice strapped across our backs – regardless of whether it is real or simply just perceived – makes us weary. And slow. And less effective than we otherwise would be. Continually keeping score requires such vigilance – the same kind of vigilance required to do a thing well. Eyes divided don’t see clearly. Something has to give.
During the Dallas Cowboys second pre-season game this past weekend, the NFL network aired a two-minute feature on their rookie guard from Kansas State who had ironically earned the starting nod at center. Cooper Beebe, a Consensus All-American and third-round pick in the 2024 draft, found himself in Dallas behind a first-round pick and a veteran leader on the offensive line at his proven position. The Cowboys didn’t have a spot for another guard, but they did have a need for a center. So Beebe learned to snap. Saturday’s feature showed video of the decorated lineman practicing shotgun snaps to his mother over the summer in the family’s chain-linked backyard. His mom, in workout gear and a ponytail, held an outstretched hand as a target, unwilling to move it an inch to secure a snap that missed its mark. When Cooper would nail it, she’d toss the ball back for another cadenced round.
Cooper Beebe kept no ledger filled with what he thought he deserved. He didn’t run up and down the street demanding to be paid. With a shoulder-shrug at the crossroad, he chose agency. He got to work and found a way to play.
He didn’t send the Dallas Cowboys a bill because nobody owed him anything.
Athletics have long sported scenarios that don’t feel fair. Bigger, stronger athletes defeat teams that play hard and do things right. Players who show up for practice every day often never get to play. The landscape of competitive sports is a laboratory for learning about why and how to work.
Earning and deserving are slightly different things.
My three-year-old granddaughter starts lots of sentences with “actually” these days. “Actually, GG, the snail is just looking for its family.” “ Actually, GG, fruit snacks are a little bit healthy.” Usually, it means she would like for me to look at a thing in a different sort of way. The “actually” on the Geo Prism’s bumper sticker struck me.
When focused on what we think we are owed, the lens tightens in on lack. We spend time and energy on what we don’t have rather than what we do. And when that happens, we give our power away. There’s only so much space inside. The choice to expect big things from ourselves leaves little room for housing expectations of the world.
Actually, tit for tat is the default. It’s the easy landing strip that absolves us of action. This helpless way of looking at the world can creep in and distort everything we see.
What a gift to be reminded that nobody owes us crap.