Elusive

I wasn’t a big follower of the Olympics. First of all, aside from the UAAP, I’m not really into sports. Never have, and, most likely, never will. Second of all, if you’re not really into sports and your country doesn’t exactly have an exciting showing, you won’t have a reason to follow the Olympics closely. Unless, perhaps, you hear about this phenomenal athlete called Michael Phelps.

Phelps, a swimmer from the United States, set out to win eight—imagine that, eight—gold medals. He’s just one man, going for eight golds, while the entire Philippine team—all fifteen of them—was struggling for just one, our country’s first.

This is the part where a lot of reasons and excuses start cropping up. We’re not exactly a first world country; we don’t support our athletes financially; we don’t have technology to train our athletes; our athletes don’t have good nutrition in their diet. I’m hearing all this, yes, and I do agree that when you’re a third world country, sports isn’t exactly a government priority. I had to bear that first-hand when, after transferring from De La Salle University to University of the Philippines, I took a cheering class for P.E. where all my classmates and I had to do was attend UAAP games and cheer for the “underprivileged” UP basketball team.

Yet, I’m also reminded of this Readers Digest article I read many years ago that first introduced me to the concept of psychological barriers. According to the article, one man finally did what was deemed impossible: he ran a mile under four minutes. Nobody had ever done it before—at least nobody on record. But when this man finally did it, many others soon followed suit. And then it sort of became the standard, if not the norm.

Inundated with different sorts of articles about our Olympic bid, I’ve encountered the term “elusive gold” a gazillion times. Some articles were hopeful, some were more cynical. Many were romanticizing the quest—yes, it’s now the Quest for the Elusive Gold Medal.

It’s my fear that we’ve unwittingly set a psychological barrier for ourselves. So long as we keep calling this medal elusive, we’ll always see it first as an impossible dream. As if we didn’t already have enough barriers (see above reasons and excuses) to hurdle.

I’m not saying that all we need to do to win a gold medal—or anything, for that matter—is change the way we refer to things. I’m saying that’s a good, no, great start. Everything starts in the mind. And this is the part where I’m passionate about being somewhat part of media, and, being a creative writer, part of one of the creative forces that’s shaping how people perceive the Philippines. I want to help bring our perception up to the point wherein excelling is a matter of fact.

This reminds me of a friend who’s an account executive for a daily broadsheet. Her job is quota-based and her monthly quota is a hefty eight-figure sum. She was always falling short of her quota, until she decided to make a shift and made it her goal to be 100 percent in all areas of her life, work included. The next time I asked about her job, she said she was doing extremely well and that reaching her quota was already a “way of life” for her.

I’m not exactly proud of how we chase Filipino connections when it comes to entertainment celebrities and athletes, as if our only hope to touch something great is to be half or part of something that’s not completely us. Our greatness, as is everybody’s, is a matter of fact. We won’t be claiming that while we keep calling it elusive.

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