If you're a football fan like me then you likely watched the Super Bowl last night, unless work or some serious emergency kept you busy.

Highlights are streaming, the news is still talking, and I'm sure Patriot fans are Monday Morning Quarterbacking.

Since everyone else is discussing the game today, I don't have to, nor will I (much). Instead, I want to talk about other people who talked about the game.

I didn't want to watch the Super Bowl. I admit I was disgruntled that Baltimore lost, and my favorite NFL player—Ricky Williams—missed perhaps his last opportunity to go to the biggest game of his career.

Why did I? Because it seemed everyone else was. My Facebook page blew up with posts about the NFL, and it's hallmark game, Super Bowl XLVI, or in layman's terms Super Bowl 46, or Super Bowl 2012.

Records were broken last night. Apparently during the final 3 minutes of the game there were an average of 10,000 tweets a second. A lot of very excited people.

Yet not all posts were football friendly. Some of what I saw was negative. Some people were annoyed that their Facebook pages were being taken over by fanatics. I feel for them. I did my best not to post anything football related last night, and did a good job except for a few quotes I heard on TV.

These were obviously not football fans. And it is very interesting to me that there can be so much love and enjoyment for a certain thing, and yet so much distaste.

It's amazing to see just how many varied opinions there were last night.

Why does something like this matter? I think what I saw last night is echoed in many other areas of life. In writing, for instance, or in life in general. We can never expect every last person to like us, or like the stories we write, or like the music we play, or enjoy our paintings or religion or politics.

Yet we shouldn't expect no one to like us or our work, either, if we are genuine and passionate about what we do. I mean, there are still neo-Nazis running around and people actually watch and “enjoy” the NBA, so you can get at least one person to like just about anything.

When people get together to discuss something, not everyone will agree. Some of the best comments I read last night weren't in favor of the Super Bowl, but were in favor of everyone shutting up about it. These contrary opinions (a few anyway) were well thought out.

They of course got me thinking. We live in a world where Twilight was a best seller, and yet seems to be one of the most made fun of creations in years. How can so many people like and hate something at once? How can something like a book, a story, meant to offend no one and really containing no morally offensive material at all, be so polarizing?

Is it successful because it's polarizing?

Maybe...I watched last night's game to see the Patriots lose. I'm sure others watched to see the Giants win, or to lose, or the Patriots to win. Some watched for the commercials, and some watched for the half time show, and some watched just because it was football. Others watched not at all, but had something to say about the game anyway.

Everyone involved had an opinion, either a yes or no, an up or down. Is that what we want? It's like the saying “Any publicity is good publicity.” If you tell a person not to do something, they'll do it just to find out if you were right, or to prove you wrong.

It's an interesting world we live in. We communicate with each other in strange ways, and bond together in even strangers ways. I have no doubt that today there are a few more Patriot and Giants fans in the world. I'm sure many friendships were kindled online or in a bar over beers. Perhaps even a few friendships were lost, as were more than a few bets.

And every one of us has an opinion. Every one of us has a point of view. There are more ways to look at the world than there are ways for Eli Manning to win a Super Bowl. That's two, if you haven't been counting at home.

And in my opinion, both were exciting.

Tim Tebow never fails to amaze me. I remember him standing at a podium, apologizing to fans after the Gators' only loss in 2008. He swore his team would not lose another game. He swore no one would work harder than him. The Gators never lost, and I have no doubt Tim Tebow worked harder than anyone else, and continues to do so. I've been a big fan of his ever since. He continues to defy logic, odds, and detractors.

Despite being an atheist, I'm not afraid of his faith. I'm proud of it. I want to be like him. I want to believe in something so much that I wear it on my sleeve. He's living proof that this works.

If I believe in something, what do I have to lose? How can I possibly fail? What Tebow brings to the football field are intangibles, and it is by such intangibles that life is truly measured. Life is not measured by trophies, awards, titles, and games won or lost.

We can all have something to believe in, to put our faith in. It can be love for family, a political, religious, or spiritual ideal, a dream, humanity itself. Something to push us forward, something for which we strive for. Something to motivate us to do better, to be better, to reach for the next step on the stairway.

Very few people exhibit this as well as Tebow, so it's no surprise to me that Tebow usually finds a way to get things done. His opponents rarely have a chance. Tebow has a purpose when he's out on the football field, and it's a greater purpose than simply winning the game. And that's why he wins. He's driven by more than end results. People with more physical talent than he has don't stand a chance against him if they lack the balance he has for life.

If I can live for more than myself, and for more than what I hope to accomplish, what can possibly stop me from feeling fulfilled and happy, and accomplishing what I set out to do?

What can stop me from feeling fulfilled and happy even if I fail?

Faith is a win/win situation with few exceptions. I've witnessed this time and again. People can suffer the worst things if they have faith in something. Without faith, people can have everything and hate and waste it all. With faith comes appreciation and perspective.

This hasn't always been my point of view, but as I become more of an individualist I have come to see that it doesn't matter so much what we do and believe, but that we have something to do and believe in.