Carlos “Caloy” Yulo: A source of pride

He inspired the whole country with his victory. He did not bag just one but two gold medals --one for the men’s vault final in artistic gymnastics and the other for the floor exercise-- in this year’s Paris Olympics. It was an unusual feat.

In a country that gives you everything that makes you pessimistic, from traffic to the kind of public servants we have, Caloy’s triumph is rain in summer, a sigh of relief.

But Caloy did not get what he got overnight. He dreamed at a very young age, which is good. There is nothing in this world that one can master in the blink of an eye. Mastery takes time. This is not to say that one should not do anything because you are old. There are also many stories of successful people who started a little late in the eyes of many. It pays to start early. I read somewhere that it takes at least 10 years to be good at your work. I am not sure about that since we have different learning curves.

Caloy reportedly started practicing gymnastics at age 7 in a simple public gymnasium at Rizal Memorial Coliseum. He never allowed his environment to affect him. You may have the best equipment, but without determination, such equipment amounts to nothing. It’s just like wanting to acquire knowledge without reading a single page of a book.

Caloy has had his share of disappointments or failures, but he turned them into tools that propelled him to greatness. One mistake people commit is to view failure as the opposite of success. Another mistake is to allow an incident or two to define them. So they spend their lives overthinking what went wrong. That’s being too hard on oneself. Let go and try again, and again, and again.

After Caloy’s victory, many wished to become gymnasts like him, in the same way that many wanted to become boxers every time Manny Pacquiao emerged as the winner. While this is not entirely wrong, one must be seriously warned that we are all differently destined for something. Not everyone can be a boxer, a gymnast, a singer, or a dancer.

What is imperative is that we put similar energy, grit, focus, and enthusiasm into our respective endeavors. If you are a teacher, be the best teacher. The late Dr. Martin Luther King put it more emphatically when he said: “And when you discover what you are going to be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. Do that job so well that the living, dead, and unborn couldn’t do it any better. If it falls on your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures. Street sweeps like Beethoven composed music. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper.”

Resist feeling envious of the amount of money Caloy will receive because of his win. Just remember how he bled to get to where he is now.