On America's Lack of a Team Mindset

     Americans love team sports (and sports in general). We consume them year-round in many forms, across many venues, and across so many demographics. Young or old, minority or not, the great majority of us take in sports in some form or other. MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL - is there even a calendar day in the year you can't catch at least one of the major sports (I honestly don't know)? Yet, for all our love of team sports, why do so many of us have such a poor concept of what it's like to be part of a team?
     If you play, observe, or are familiar with team sports in a general capacity (one group of people tries beating another group of people in a contest), you're familiar with the idea that a team is only as good as its weakest player. If you're a basketball person, it might look like attacking the same, slow-footed player on the other team. If you're a football fan, it's spamming plays to continuously target one particularly (relatively) bad opponent that you know you can catch in a bad position. Games, series, and most certainly championships (Patriots attacking Goff in 2019) have been won/lost (Cavs decimating Curry in 2017) by attacking particular players. Those are just 2 famous examples, but I had to bring them up because I feel like a lot of people don't understand the concept, or they understand the concept in the context of sports but don't go on to extend that understanding to society/politics.
     So what's the tie to society? Well there are many, really. Here are the first 3 things that come to mind, and they are relevant to everybody:

• Education
• Health
• Wealth

     As it pertains to education: a country is only as educated as its least educated member. Say what you want about college, but it offers the opportunity for you to learn just about anything you are interested in. This isn't to divide those who attended college and those who did not. I am just saying that the opportunity to learn is a great thing. & although plenty of my learning came from reading, a fair amount took place through discussion. Lastly, even aside from the formal education, there are the opportunities to meaningfully interact with people from a much wider range of backgrounds that is just harder to get outside of that space.
     As it pertains to health: a country is only as healthy as its least healthy member. There's just too many ways to consider this one. Nutritional health. Mental health. Physical health. There's so many ways we're lacking. It's depressing to speak on it too much, so I'll just drop one tidbit: in the country with the largest economy in the world, about 13% of households experienced food insecurity in 2015 (according to the USDA). This impacted millions of children, so... yeah. We can't even reliably feed our kids. If that doesn't say anything to you about the state of our country, I don't know what to tell you.
     As it pertains to wealth: a country is only as wealthy as its poorest members. This one is just laughably obvious to me. There are those who would have you believe that, since there are so many billionaires in our borders, that somehow benefits the rest of the country. Do y'all think that living in the same country as billionaires is of any comfort to those without water, medical access, or a roof over their heads? Lack of education and propaganda got people so good that they feel privileged just to grace the same soil as the super wealthy. Let me spell it out for you: just because Jeffrey Epstein is so rich and connected that he can abuse kids and get off with nary a slap on the wrist, that puts ABSOLUTELY NO MONEY in your pockets to help you pursuit happiness or fulfill your potential.
     & if you think that anybody who is in dire straits "deserves it" - I can't deny that some certainly do. But I will remind you that bad things happen to good people - and if you're so devoid of empathy, compassion, and/or understanding that you don't see fit to pick up those who have only fallen due to poor luck, I sincerely hope that you'll eventually come to a better understanding of the world.