Too little
The touchline prosecution
Everyone needs to hear what I think of that referee.
A burst of frustration becomes public pressure on someone officiating the game.
Self-Command
Let your next response serve the game, not the outburst.
The cultivated restraint of impulses that would cause needless harm.
Self-Command directs an impulse before it becomes needless harm. A supporter can care fiercely about a match without making every frustrated thought public property. Restraint leaves room to choose words and actions that support the people playing, even while a decision still feels wrong.
Self-Command gives support the players can actually use
From the touchline, the decision looks outrageous. In your head, an eloquent appeal has already become a documentary about injustice, with you as its indispensable narrator. The young referee has meanwhile restarted the game. You draw breath for the opening statement, then let it go. Your child is looking back towards play. You lower the pointing hand and watch the next move. The documentary will have to survive without its live commentary.
Finding the balance in Self-Command
A parent watching a match is about to shout an accusation at a young referee after a disputed call.
A fitting response
A chosen response
I’m angry about the call. I can still watch and support the players.
The spectator keeps responsibility for their conduct without pretending to agree.
Pursued too far
Compulsory approval
If I question any decision, I have failed at self-control.
Restraint becomes a ban on considered criticism or a properly raised concern.
The feeling can be yours without becoming the referee’s punishment.
What Self-Command makes possible
Players gain a supporter who can attend to the next move instead of demanding an audience for the last grievance. A real concern can be considered afterwards through an appropriate channel. Self-command improves the choice of response; it does not make every decision correct or every complaint unreasonable.
Self-Command in ordinary life
The message after the match
Read an angry team-group message again before sending it. Separate what happened from the accusation you added.
From the bench
When a teammate makes an error, offer a timely, specific observation if it is welcome. A public verdict on their ability chiefly releases your frustration.
Nearby virtues, different work
Temperance
Temperance concerns the measure of appetites; Self-Command concerns impulses that could cause needless harm.
Courage
Courage can be needed to raise a justified concern. Self-Command helps keep its expression truthful and purposeful.
Self-Command and its counterfeits
The calm insult
A quiet voice does not make a cutting remark considerate. Restraint concerns the action as well as its volume.
Silence at any price
Suppressing a serious concern to seem agreeable confuses self-command with submission.
How to cultivate Self-Command
Notice the sentence forming before you say it.
Return your attention to what the players are doing now.
If a concern remains, describe the facts later and choose an appropriate route for raising it.
Try it today
Rewrite one irritated sporting comment as a factual observation. Keep it private while deciding whether anything needs to follow.
Questions worth returning to
- Who would have to carry the force of this outburst?
- What would help the players at this moment?
Keep the practice proportionate
Restraint does not require tolerating abuse or managing threats alone. Leaving or seeking appropriate help can be the considered response.
Quotations and further reading
Seven selections to return to through the week. Follow a source link to read the surrounding passage.
If anyone were to ask us the question ‘What class of useful men receive most abuse and least thanks for their service?’ we should, without hesitation, reply, ‘Cricket umpires.’
A. G. Steel · Cricket · Chapter V · Umpires
Steel opens his umpiring chapter by noticing how little thanks accompanies a demanding role. A spectator’s anger arrives in the life of a person doing that work, not at an abstract symbol of the call.
I remember that all went well with me till the sixth hole in the tie, where I got into a small bunker from the tee, took two to get out and left some of my temper behind in it.
Horace G. Hutchinson · Fifty Years of Golf · First Days At St. Andrews
Hutchinson leaves some of his temper in a bunker along with two wasted strokes. The wry admission makes a familiar loss of composure visible without dressing it up as justified outrage.
Not to speak, not to move, is one of the most important of our duties, in certain practical emergencies.
William James · Talks to Teachers and to Students · The Child as a Behaving Organism
James includes restraint among positive actions. The touchline spectator who lets an angry sentence pass is doing something purposeful, even though the result is a quieter moment.
Now he who is angry at what and with whom he ought, and further, in right manner and time, and for proper length of time, is praised, so this Man will be Meek since Meekness is praised.
Aristotle · Nicomachean Ethics · Book IV · Anger · D. P. Chase translation
Aristotle evaluates the target, manner and duration of anger. The question after a disputed call is not whether anger exists, but whether the next action answers what actually needs addressing.
If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend its increase.
Epictetus · The Golden Sayings of Epictetus · Saying LXXV · Hastings Crossley translation
Epictetus describes anger as a habit that repeated conduct can feed. A familiar impulse to insult need not receive another rehearsal each time a call disappoints.
A bowler should never grumble aloud at catches being missed; the unfortunate man has done his best and failed, and any censure only makes him more flurried and adds to his discomfiture without doing any good.
A. G. Steel · Cricket · Chapter III · Bowling
Steel asks what public blame actually does to a teammate who has already failed. The point applies at the touchline too: releasing frustration can make someone else’s next task harder.
The best kind of revenge is, not to become like unto them.
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations · Book VI · V · Meric Casaubon translation
Marcus resists the way retaliation copies the conduct it condemns. Another parent’s insults from the touchline do not make joining in a better way to support the players.
Continue through the catalog
Practice this collection
Choose this approved collection as an optional workbook program, or select individual virtues in My Virtues.