Ted Lasso and working together to do more

There’s a scene in the most recent Ted Lasso season that has really stuck with me. As part of his character’s arc in allowing his worst aspects of his personality to drive him away from Ted and the others, Nate wonders aloud about recognition for his individual role.

Coach Beard answers, “You know, we used to believe that trees competed with each other for light. Suzanne Simard’s field work challenged that perception, and we now realize that the forest is a socialist community. Trees work in harmony to share the sunlight.”

In a show that’s all about striving to be a better person and how a team working together is more than its individual parts, this struck me as really important, but also an important lesson that should be taken in by our society in general. 

During the post war era I think we went way too far on individualism. This may have been necessary at the time. The world would have become a boring place if everyone was the same and fit into the cookie cutter ideal of 1950s America, cue the “Little Boxes” song. But at some point this vision of individualism merged with the absurd American creeds of greed and authentic frontier gibberish, and as is our tendency we took this all too far. “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps” etc. Even when confronted by data and examples that show that working together as a community is more effective, we shy away from it or are told something about “freedom.” This has never been clearer than with the pandemic and this drive of “I don’t want to take a vaccine or wear a mask because why should I help others?”

It’s a real shame, because together we could accomplish so much. I don’t know if we could ever be that idealized forest, but we could certainly do a lot more together than we can working alone with no thought for others or for the long term.