If you keep tabs on the NBA and, to a lesser extent, other sports, you know that they spend like 47 minutes out of the first 48 minutes chilling. Hanging out like they are laying on a hammock on the beach. They just can’t seem to resist waiting until the game really matters, then finally deciding like they care. Then, when they finally realize that they could actually lose the game, they start finally doing what they are getting paid billions of dollars to do. They put the ball in the basket.

But then someone on the other team, puts the ball in their basket and people start cheering, so this positive reinforcement happens and they decide to do it again. Back and forth they go, finally making things. Then, they keep calling time out, like having an extra “minute and a half”(I put that in quotes because in real time it is about 10 minutes) time out will help them do what they practice millions of hours doing. It’s just a 10 foot hoop dudes, one that most of you can touch without having to jump.

So of course the team you are cheering for is ahead by a point or two, and that means all you have to do is prevent the other team from making a shot. But of course the other team does as the buzzer goes off. And you get upset and punch the pillow or a wall if you are Andy Bernard, and you immediately start to remember all the stupid plays your team could have made, or all the dumb layups and dunks your team let the other one get.  But none of them matter.

And your mind will never forget them. I still remember a bitter play that happened 25 years ago, and another bitter one from 13 years ago. I don’t remember all the good ones. All because they were last second failures.

And guess what? So does your boss. And your wife, or husband. And your kids. You could do hundreds or thousands of good things and all people will remember you for is the one miserable failure. Remember the Alamo? Yes, because they were all defeated. Remember the Titanic? Yep, because it is 40,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Remember Bill Buckner? Yep, because the ball slipped between his legs. No one remembers the great stuff you did in the previous 8 innings, 47 minutes, or 43 years.

The other thing that makes me bitter about the last second warriors, is that people that are lazy like me, that wait until the last second, should not be rewarded. They shouldn’t get infamy for being miserable failures. They shouldn’t have their bitter failures in lights, and pictures and carved in stone and in halls of infame.

But because the spotlight is always on people when the “last second” shots come, it always seems like the hours and hours of work that is spent preparing for that moment, those are lost, while the “last second” people that are able to fail or succeed in those moments get all the glory or infamy.

And to that I say,

ARRRRGGGHHHHHHH

Bitter Last Second Infamy Ben