I am a big sports fan and now football season has started this week! I am so excited and can’t wait to watch some of my favorite teams play it out. I think sports are a great diversion for us and sometimes we can get so caught up in it for trivial matters.
When we invite friends over, we would critique all our favorite players to see how they played and what they did correctly and incorrectly. As fans, we would hold them to the highest standard possible, which is championship or bust. They must lift that trophy up by the end of the season, or else it is a complete disappointment.
I must say that many athletes here in the USA get paid handsomely, at least those from the major sports – like baseball, basketball, football, and hockey. I do envy their pockets but I don’t envy their situation as a whole. These athletes bust their behind every day for the sake of excellence in front of the public eye.
Every little or big thing they do on and off the court is dissected by the news media and sometimes it can be a complete circus case. I would say that even though many of them make millions of millions of dollars, I still don’t envy them because they really have to be okay with that type of critique on a daily basis.
And not just any type of critique. Sometimes, it would be a completely out-of-the-blue unwarranted critique of their situation. Sometimes, they would force themselves to play through an injury for the sake of glory and for the sake of their team, when in reality, it would better serve them to simply sit out for a game or two.
The innate pressures of being an athlete are not to be discounted and I respect them for being in the arena every single day to fight for their team’s ability to win. I think the fact that they are in the arena with the proverbial blood, sweat, and tears, is something to be respected and admired.
I think that there is probably an innate respect between most athletes because they understand each other’s struggles and battles. Some of them have come out with their struggles in mental health and have shared what it feels like for their professional lives to be out there for the entire world to see.
In basketball (since I’m a fan), I know some of them have battled with panic attacks and downright depression – even though from the public eye they are expected to be absolutely happy with their lives all the time simply because they are making millions and millions of dollars.
No, I’d say that money doesn’t matter much at all when it comes to relative peace of mind and relative happiness. Sure, when you make millions of dollars, your basic necessities (food, water, shelter, clothing, etc.) will be more than accounted for, but there comes a host of other issues that you need to deal with as a public athlete as well.
I personally don’t know firsthand since I’m not a professional sports player. But I would imagine the wear and tear it could have on them and their personal family lives. Always being on the road where everyone knows your name, phone number, and address. It’s a different type of life to adapt to. And again, I don’t envy that. Personally, I enjoy being able to walk down the street to the local Dunkin Donuts, without being mobbed by unruly fans.
I guess that many of them do enjoy their lives very much – given the fame and fortune. And I’m sure once you get enough reps in, you tune yourself out to the unruly mobs and the unfair critiques. In general, I respect athletes very much, not just for their physical dedication but their mental fitness as well.
It’s not easy to be called upon to win a zero-sum game each single day, where your competition is looking straight at you and trying to beat you at whatever it is that you’re playing. I understand that it’s “just” a game and that their games are pretty black and white (where rules are defined and where everyone 100% agrees on what it means to win or lose) compared to the game of life.
But yes, I still don’t envy their position. Some say that what they do are trivial, but technically everything that we all do in this life is just a speck of dust in the universe. I know I’m getting a little bit hunky dory now, but the fact that we are all in this world together fighting in this arena of life should be respected.
We all have times in life where we are athletes and where we are called upon to compete, with blood, sweat, and tears. As Theodore Roosevelt famously said with his “man in the arena” quote (look it up), the true respect comes to those people who are actually competing for something meaningful. And not those that are critiquing simply for the sake of critique.
It’s not easy to put yourself out there. I know that firsthand because I am not exactly one that can handle certain critiques very well. So, hats off to you athletes out there. And hats off to anyone out there that has had to compete at a certain point in time in this game of life.
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