Okay so the Olympics just concluded last Sunday - kudos UK you did an OK job nothing mind blowing or goo goo ga ga actually it was a tad bit confusing mara spice girls sijui who mara sijui what - yeah I know your trying to keep up with the tech times and youth lakini aaaiii...so anyhu...for me Olympics speaks to a place of my childhood I look back with relish - all of us as a family on the couch watching the 92 opening ceremony of the Barca olympics - I was cough cough years old - lets just say it was my first olympics... and twenty years later Olympics for me still makes me shed tears..Yani I hear the stories of the athletes - there is this Chinese dude who last Olympics in Beijing sprained his muscle as he jumped over the first hurdle immediately disqualified and four years later after sweat and tears and sleepless nights injures himself again just after the start of the race.Then I think of the American sprinter who was raped by her uncle and has kept it a secret up until last year and she says "running provided her a release from all the anger."Oh and then boy oh boy actually the reason I am blogging today...her name is Gabby Douglas.Little girl with big dreams.yani at fourteen she left home for a year to train with the best and said hey I need to be on that stage mamma and the only way I can do this is if I sacrifice...Yani you see her perform you see the determination in her eyes before she jumps and you cant help but think darn the power of the human will to do anything and break any barriers.You see the pain and tears on their faces when they loose a match by one one hundreth of a second - whatever that means lol....The tears streaming down their faces as the winning flags are going up and their countrys anthem is being sung - you can only begin to wonder what is going through their heads they see the flag go up - the nights they stayed up practicing , the muscles they sprained , the family they had to stay away from for a while ....Gabby Douglas said she does not watch when the other gymnasts are performing she is only focusing on beating her own time.I think of Usain Bolt he as he is sprinting like a cheetah not focusing on anyone around him but beating his own world record..A favorite line comes to my head something like "chase the dream not the competition"...Oh and this one I stole from Seth Godins blog "The problem with competition is that it takes away the requirement to set your own path, to invent your own method, to find a new way. When you have competition, it's the pack that decides what's going to happen next, you're merely trying to get (or stay) in front.Competing with yourself is more difficult, requires more bravery and leads to more insight."
So anyway I believe we are all Olympians in our own right - yeah I know sounds weird .... you may not be swimming in an Olympic sized pool or doing sky high Gaby jumps but if your constantly wanting better from yourself, pushing yourself to be the best you can be - whether its being the best writer, mother, carpet cleaner, cook, CEO, husand , nurse , anything...that my friend is your Olympic podium...okay thats my two minute of blegh.....meanwhile kudos to Afghanistan and the other countries that had women for the first time ...
