Tristan and Hansen are colleagues who enjoy their lunch breaks together each day as they share thoughts and have conversations about a variety of topics. Sitting in the lunch room one day, they notice a ping pong table near the coffee area.

Hansen decided to try ping pong which made Tristan interested as well. They stepped up to the table, paddles in hand, and started to volley the ball back and forth. It took some time to get the hang of it and to understand the rules of the game, but since the table was always prepared and the equipment was always handy, they wasted no time getting ready for the game. The more experienced players noticed their interest and offered advice on technique and helped Tristan and Hansen to learn the proper rules of the game. Each day they could jump right in and begin the day’s match. And each day, their learning curve became smaller and smaller while they had fun honing their new skills.

Without the luxury of having a fully functioning, prepared table, Tristan and Hansen might have easily been turned off the game. If there had been holes in the net, broken table legs, or dented ping pong balls, the motivation to learn and play would have diminished. It would have made things very hard for Hansen and Tristan to play the game and it definitely would have effected their learning and skill improvement. The purpose of the game was very clear from the beginning – the minimum acceptable outcome was to simply to have fun playing, while the ultimate goal was to actually win against the opponent. And while winning or playing a perfect game from the beginning wasn’t likely, (in fact it would have been surprising) ultimately it was completely acceptable the lose, yet continue to improve skill sets and overall performance.

As time went on, more players would occasionally join the game, and the purpose of the game could change from time to time. Some are more competitive, others just want to relax and blow off steam, but this doesn’t affect the quality of the game. It was still fun and winning was always a worthy goal!

This story is not about ping pong 🙂 
The end.