We are part of some four billion people watching the extraordinary performances of athletes from more than 200 countries at the Beijing Olympic Ganes. Over 300 gold medals will be won and carried away to different parts of the world.
Records will be broken. New talents will come to limelight. Athletes will be immortalized. We the spectators will watch on our couches as history unfolds before our very eyes. We are merely spectators.
Maybe not.
It seems to me that there are two Olympic Games– the public summer and winter Olympics and our personal though publicly played Olympic Games. Our Olympic Game is even harder because we practice and play at the same time. Daily.
We are all aiming unknowingly every day for an insubstantial gold medal
Olympic athletes work with determination to win medals others have designed. We who are everyday Olympians design our own medals. We play by the universal laws of life. TSynchronicities reward us. We have countless opportunities to lose and a million chnces to win a symbolic medals of life.
There is a prize greater than gold to which we other Olympians whose field of play is our every day world. A prize winnable every second of every day although some believe such a prize is reserved for some last day. Like an epitath that summarizes what we lived and died for of which the following are fitting examples:
- Edgar Allan Poe: Fly Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore”
- Alexander the Great “A tomb now suffices for him whom the world was not enough.”
- Anthony, Susan B. “Liberty, Humanity, Justice, Equality”
How might your life be different if you treated life as your own Olympic Games, more significant than any Summer and Winter Olympics you have witnessed or will ever watch?
Ahem…. You left out Special Olympics which is a better representation of my life. The incredible feats that I see every day doesn’t compare to what is on TV right now. Although I do love watching Volleyball and gymnastics. You remember that much publicized gymnastic vault where Kerri Strug vaulted on an injured ankle? That is a good representation of the adversity and heart of the people in my world. Remember Scott?
By: Debby on August 11, 2008
at 3:52 pm
I’ll summarize ya both : ) It is in the REACHING FOR that which is so reachable, so phenomenal, and so ineffable that all things fall in comparison. The Olympic games are an example of people evolving their gifts to the highest extremes, believing in the unachieved, and sharing the glory of new human heights with the world. The Special Olympics takes people who are sooo gifted in ways often underappreciated by the world, radiates that appreciation and love where it has not been unveiled, and allows every athlete to bask in his/her Eternal truth. These are available to us all. We can reach beyond the limits of the universe, and we can bask in the Eternal truth, right here, right now… no remote control necessary!
By: Michele on August 11, 2008
at 11:00 pm
Thanks for the posts. Both Olympic Games (Summer and Winter) mean different things to different people. Debby, it is really unbelievable what the special Olympic Athletes perform.
Thanks, Michele, for summarizing the ideas. I really like your take on it all: We don’t need a remote control to experience IT.
By: Kwami on August 12, 2008
at 2:37 am