While Rio De Janeiro may not be known for “Rio,” a movie where Anne Hathaway, Jesse Eisenberg, George Lopez and Jamie Foxx voice colorful, rainforest residents in Brazil, Rio has been all the talk the past few weeks. Why? The 2016 Summer Olympics, the largest watched program internationally.
In a world full of conflicting ideologies and ever-rising political tensions, the best of the best athletes gather and the world witnesses them. We acknowledge them almost instinctively as they compete to take home the gold.
The phenomena have been particularly of interest to me because the world so massively approves of the nature of competition—but just once every four years. There’s no “everyone gets a trophy” when it comes to the Olympics.
Comfortable times have resulted in a shifting attitude in society where large groups of people feel uncomfortable with the idea of meritocracy and the consequences for lack of achievement in life.
But what is it about these Olympic athletes makes them so iconic? Is there a reason we can all gather in support while half the population actively discourages the nature of competition? The matter is simply that there are qualities that these Olympic athletes possess that are evidence of success in and out of the Olympics.
Olympic athletes are dedicated. Simone Biles didn’t just stroll on up to the Olympics and the gold medals just fell into her hands by coincidence. Biles spent year after year, one vault, one bar transition, one stretch and step at a time to become the international sensation she is after her Olympic sweep of four gold medals and a bronze.
Look at how Biles comes off a performance. When she makes an error, as a former gymnast myself I can tell you that she knows it. But even before she exits the floor, she has to pull herself together and continue her routine that she spent years on.
It reminds me of my own experience in sports.
It takes me back to my first big track competition that I had worked months to ready myself for. Finally the gunshot sounded and all eight of us sprinted for our lives. My competitor clipped the back of my foot, and I ate the turf and was a bleeding mess with pieces of turf sticking out.
I thought surely I went from first to last, but I rolled as I fell and got back up. My family and friends were watching and I flopped, but I got it together and my fall only cost me two positions.
Similarly, Mo Farah of Great Britain experienced a fall during his 10000 meter race, yet recovered and took home the gold.
It wasn’t the best I could do and Farah’s time would have been better had he not fallen, but not everything is in your control in life at all times.
Sometimes you’re going to have people come in your lane and accidents are going to happen. Life is a full contact sport, emotionally and physically. I couldn’t foresee I was going to get clipped in my most important race, but I did practice what to do if I ever stumbled. A third place finish isn’t much to most people, but if that were the Olympics I’d have taken the bronze.
As viewers, we love those moments. We recognize, deduction after deduction, that even our best of the best—are not perfect. When our athletes take a fall or make an error, when they get back up the entire audience cheers. The ability to continue after a mistake is and has been crucial to the success of our athletes, and it is a key to your personal success too.
This all stems from competition. Would we have the drive to get back up if we were not striving to achieve?
Really, what happens when you make a mistake? The mental game continues about how you let that mistake affect the rest of your performance. In practices, we make tons of mistakes and our coaches are not afraid to tell us. It’s critique, and criticism is one of the best gifts we’re not going to have a choice in receiving.
It’s like that Christmas gift that you open and you know you’ll never use but you remember it’s the thought that counts. Even criticism from people that are malicious can be very helpful—if you know how to handle it and approach it with your game face on. Just because something is mean unfortunately does not mean that it isn’t true or unhelpful.
The extremely experienced can often give advice that is brash and brutal, but it is often honest. If it is honest critique, it can be helpful. If you are not honest to someone, you’re setting him or her up for a larger disappointment. And as always, advice should never be taken too seriously.
When I think back, if I hadn’t had my form corrected, or told my back handspring flat-out sucked, I couldn’t improve. I’d just have repeatedly hit my head on the spring floor until I gave myself enough concussions to make another Will Smith movie about.
Really, if I couldn’t improve, I could not have gotten to where I wanted to be. They were trying to help me achieve my goals, and similarly the way you mediate the advice and the criticism you receive can make or break your plans in life.
We need competition because we need to achieve and to achieve we need to improve. Without competition we’re less likely to improve. We strive for homeostasis in a dynamic environment as complex creatures of uncertain times.
There are still more elements to these Olympians that we can relate to ourselves.
Another part of the Olympic spirit is the pride for your country. Athletes are competing for their countries and themselves. When they win, their country’s national anthem plays and it’s not uncommon for there to be visible emotion.
Some people are uncomfortable with the idea of having any positive feeling towards your national identity and country. That aside, there’s still a connection between that determination and the feeling of having both represented something and achieved something larger than you. We want to belong, and when you can cherish a victory for your own and as a part of a nation, we see our Stars and Stripes often accompanied by our own watery eyes.
We as individuals can have improved levels of satisfaction and happiness in life by forming positive relationships with groups and others in our social spheres. Those relationships help us succeed. There is good peer pressure out there, and there are many great people you can surround yourself for that understand your goals and want to support you as you strive for them.
When you have good relationships on a community level, a spiritual level, platonic or romantic levels, you can share your achievements and your successes with others.
You’re actually generating more positivity when you experience those emotions and can share those successes with the ones you care for.
In a competition you see a lot of different emotions at different times. It’s reflective of how we process challenges, how we experience joy and how we relate to others.
In a competition like in life, you might as well smile. A smile is contagious but a positive attitude can be an epidemic. Smiling in a competition is because you’re competing, like you smile in life when you’re truly living.
As for competition? There’s significant evidence about the merit that participation in sports and competitive pretty much anything can provide a unique and useful form of education. Competition won’t always go your way, just like life. It may be a quintessential, inescapable part of life, but it is more manageable especially with an Olympic state of mind.
Barton Kleen
Managing Editor