Old Chinese Old Allegory

“A wooden cask is made up of many planks, once one of the planks is crashed, the cask can not store water any more”, goes an old Chinese Old Allegory but has a collective responsibility with other planks towards the well being of the wooden cask. The plank does not belong to itself. The damaged plank harms the cask’s capability. Like the plank, I do not just belong to myself. Now, I am the captain of my school basketball team. I had taken a lot of basketball games before I became the captain. There is a game that I bet I can hardly forget in my whole life.
“Overhead pass, Zhu! ” Wang, my teammate said, waving her hands aside, I was running with the ball towards the short girls who decided to block me, because I thought they do not have the ability to block me due to their short statures. ‘Zhu, come on! ’ spectators shouted. Yes! I evaded a girl successfully. ‘Brilliant! ’ spectators shouted again. Yes! I evaded another girl’s ‘talon’ secondly. ‘Come on; Come on…’ I felt my pulse rated quickly. The yelling and the attentions, which were given by almost all the spectators, made me craze. ‘Overhead pass, Zhu’ Wang shouted again.
But I thought I could take the goal myself. I wanted to show my skills during the out-two count. Suddenly, I felt that there was just me, basketball and spectators in this world and my feeling was; I belonged to myself. I felt I would succeed soon… ‘AH~’ all at once, a girl was running towards me. Before I could understand what was happening, I lost the ball. I found that, time, all the yelling and my pulse almost stopped at once. I could only see my teammates’ blue grimaces, which hurt me so much. Distraught, I suddenly notified my teammates who were present.

So there they were, with me. I was not fighting alone. I had my comrades, I had my friends. Their grimaces made me feel hurt and guilty. I should not have been selfish. I should have known that, I belonged to the team. I should have passed the ball to Wang. She was in a wonderful position to score. It was our last chance to win. If we got the score, we could have beaten our opponents, it was my fault. Now, we did not have enough time to win. Losing this chance, we were destined to lose this game. Finally, we lost our game, one point! We were so desperate that we could hardly believe it.
This game left me with so many things to think. I felt like I am a little plank. The so called success, which collided with the team’s interests, could not last long. At most, it was just a beautiful personal short show. I do not just belong to myself, sometimes, I should not just consider myself. I have the responsibility to my team, to my school, to my home and even to my society. I cannot let my memories stick to the lost basketball game. If I was given the opportunity again, I would appreciate that, as a plank, I should do everything in my ability to keep my cask full of water.