Ramblings on what keeps us going

This piece was originally meant to be about another analysis of an intriguing event in sports, and may yet turn out to be one. But for the nonce, I’d like to talk about how tough times are, particularly for those out there supporting families, trying to scratch out a living. Many of us live in a precarious balance, where one delayed check or payment means the power company cuts off your electricity, literally leaving you in the dark.

That tightening, heavy feeling in your chest is fear. Fear is our reaction when the world isn’t the way we want it to be. Fear happens when you don’t get what you want, when you think it is withheld from you, by circumstance, other people, God, or any other power that controls your destiny. And it hurts like hell.

Sometimes, it’s really hard to keep a smile on your face when bills are due, creditors come knocking, tuition and school supplies cost more, your children have bigger, costlier dreams, and you see young men running around virtually in their underwear, making tremendous amounts of money, playing games you played as a child.

On the other hand — and this is going to be a big stretch for many of us — we could bless them as the light at the end of the tunnel, symbols of what we, too, may achieve in similar manner in our own fields. They have overcome physical weakness, pain, poverty, lack of education and other challenges to rise into prominence. And maybe they got a good break. As the saying goes, success is when preparation meets opportunity. What have we been preparing for?

In my own hard times, I have tried everything. Meditation helps, when you’re able to shut out the world for a few minutes at the start of the day, or when things get hectic. I know most Olympic athletes visualize their goals and anticipated moments of greatness until they practically have experienced them before they even happened. Talking about it lightens the load, too, although it seems to work better for women than for men. Prayer helps, having faith in a higher power, whose unseen plan involves struggle for you to achieve greatness. Hardship, from what I’ve read, means there are lessons we haven’t learned yet. I just wish I knew what they were, so I won’t have to trust my own stubbornness.

Being male, of course, I also like to retreat into my shell and just read books in silence. I know many other fathers and providers who have trouble sleeping at night, more so when all they see on television is how bad things are: fuel prices going up (and the inevitable domino effect on food prices), fighting overseas, and posturing politicians wanting power by toppling whoever has it. It doesn’t seem a safe place.

In these times of struggle, when the heavens literally flood us with challenge (I try to refer to them as challenges, not difficulties) what works most for me is looking for inspiration. The Romans tried to distract the masses by handing out bread and staging circuses, relieving their tension just enough to prevent them from revolting. And frankly, that’s what a lot of television accomplishes. I just hope they don’t numb us enough to stay on our behinds and not do anything.

Inspiration can be anywhere. In the last few weeks, this writer has encountered so many moments of inspiration that have tied on another rope of patience in an extremely difficult situation. Just yesterday, we saw the hope of young men who have realized their dreams of making it to the PBA. A dancesport team from Cebu has just carved out a bi-coastal triumph, conquering California and New York with dozens of gold medals on their very first foreign foray into the US. A young Filipino coach named Riki Magallanes brings his very young, very raw Vietnamese basketball team here to learn what they can from Filipino high school and college teams, in the hope of winning one game, just one game mind you, in the next Southeast Asian Games. A future NBA draft pick named Larry Turner comes to the Philippines to train and give himself a boost in his upcoming senior year of college. A depleted girls’ team from Cebu and an undersized boys’ team from Mindanao defeat stronger rivals to become national champions in the adidas Streetball Challenge. The boys will travel to Guangzhou, China for the Asian championship, where they will meet NBA All-Star Tracy McGrady.

Courage is a much underrated virtue. We often think of our dreams as such monumental challenges that we do not even dare to begin. Zig Ziglar, the great motivator, asks, if the whole thing seems impossible, is the first step at least possible? In a similar vein, Stephen Covey advises to: "eat the elephant one bite at a time". It’s trite but true that the journey of a thousand miles begins and ends with a first step. It may seem daunting to have to swim 800 laps a day to become an Olympic swimmer. But can you at least swim one or two to begin?

That leads me to my next point. The most deceiving aspect of sports is to see the results without the effort. We aren’t in the gym when athletes take a hundred three-point shots, five hundred jumpers, dozens of laps around the court. We don’t feel the strain of pumping iron in the gym six days a week. We don’t see their courage in committing themselves courageously to their craft, because there is no other way. Perhaps it’s not so much the effort as the mindset that we need to adapt. If there were no other way, wouldn’t you do it the way it needs to be done?

Howard Cosell once said that sports in the toy department of human life. That may be true, but for those of us who aren’t playing or joking around, it also gives us a vicarious injection of hope, that we will manage, we will survive, we will make it. As always.