Mormonism is Why I'm Not Rich and Famous

Okay, not really.

But I'm gonna go ahead and just blame the church's hyper-restrictive Sabbath Day observance for the fact that I am not currently an insanely rich soccer superstar, rolling in money and surrounded by beautiful women.  Obviously that's not true.

But when I played community intramural soccer as a kid, I was pretty good.  Probably not the best on any of the teams, but probably above average.  I wasn't really a glory seeker and I wasn't great at shooting, so I took pride in my ability to set up the plays.  I considered myself the one who got all the assists instead of the one who got all the goals.  I played from the time I was little--about six or seven, up through middle school.  And I loved it.  But I could only play during the fall season because during the spring season all the games were on Sundays.

Then something horrible happened around eighth or ninth grade--the league changed their schedule so that both spring and fall seasons had games on Sundays.  So, being the dutiful Mormon lad that I was (and not that I'd have had much of a choice anyway, because of my parents) I stopped playing the sport that I loved.

The next year, the schedule was inexplicably altered again so that the fall season games were on Sundays but most of the spring season games had moved to Saturdays.  I was overjoyed--I could play soccer again!  But because of the scheduling weirdness, it had been a year and a half since I'd last played a real game.  And when I triumphantly returned to the field, it felt like everybody else had gotten a year and half more skill than I had.  Suddenly, I was solidly below average instead of solidly above average.  I discovered I did not enjoy the sport nearly as much when I was getting schooled all the time instead of doing the schooling.

As best I remember, I'd quit soccer by my junior year of high school.  My year and a half hiatus had ruined my ability to become a superstar.

But I really don't understand the point of "keeping the Sabbath Day holy."  It seems to be, at best, a nice sentimental tradition in remembrance (is "in remembrance" used by anybody outside of Mormondom?) of the seventh day of the creation.  But it's entirely absurd to make it a doctrinally mandated practice.  I came up with a few of the usual reasons for keeping the Mormon Sabbath holy.  I'm sure this list is incomplete.

To Demonstrate Obedience - Didn't the whole obedience-for-obedience's-sake thing go out with the end of the Mosaic Law?

To Rest From Your Labors - Sure, taking a break and unwinding is important sometimes.  But it's impractical, in the modern world, to expect everyone to take a break on the same day of the week--Sunday, for example.  Plenty of jobs require flexible schedules, often necessitating work on Sundays.  And besides, as a kid, the day I rested from my labors was Saturday anyway.

To Focus on the Savior - One day a week, you can spend all day being super-religious just to make sure you don't fall out of touch with your religiosity.  But I'm going to use the argument my mother made about Easter--you shouldn't need a forced reminder to worship what you believe in if it's really that important to you.

I really don't see what tangible reason there is to keep a kid from playing soccer--or any other healthy activity--on a Sunday.