Suyin Aerts
July 30, 2021

Winners

The world is under the spell of the games. We want to see winners, we love stories about winners. We really like exceptional people, they get in the newspapers and on TV. Those smart and talented people seem to be the ones that push civilization forward. We may not forget that if they bring us medals they have as much obligations as those who did not bring a medal.

Elevating that one exceptional person might sound like a good idea, to make them a role model, but only if we’re also talking about the systemic injustices they made have faced. Elevating exceptional individuals without accounting for their circumstances and their environment does nothing seem right. Especially not if we forget that all the others athletes live under the same circumstances. Because the one with the gold medal works as hard mentally as physically as the ones that made it to the start and will not be remembered afterwards.

So I find it very important to teach my children, who like to practice sports and see it in a competitive way, that hard work might bring you to higher levels, but it might also not bring you there, because it is not only about talent and hard work it is about the year you are born in, the coaches that will come on your path, the injuries you might face and so many more things. But that is not a reason to not try to live the dream and work hard to eventually get there, because without the hard work you will not get there that is for sure. Many years after my training as a dancer I cannot look back as some of my dear friends on an amazing track record and a very long career as a dancer but I do not regret it at all.

Instead of staying focused on the ‘why not me’, I realize very often that all the things they taught me serve for every step I made so far in my life. We also need to make sure we’re creating opportunities for everyone to succeed, we should do something to help other people get there, instead of doing this awkward dance where we can only brag about ourselves.

The reason I work on one of the project that hold my mind for a while now is all about sharing and building a greater world, because we are all exceptional and we can all feel like winners.

Because feeling like a winner is much more important than wining a gold-silver or bronze medal.

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