Olympics - Do we really need to care?

This is a leap year, which means it is the year of the Olympic Games. This means we as a nation will have a shoddy medals tally. That means we as a nation will whine, cringe and express our utmost dismay to our performance in the games. It also means that we will dwell in realms of hyperbole and high emotion as we celebrate the odd winners.

I think it’s time we made a simple decision – do we or do we not truly care about the Olympics? Once, we as individuals make this decision, we just need to stick by it and act according to it. Here are a few things we may want to consider -

If we decide that we care about the Olympics, what are we as individuals going to do about building the sporting culture that our country sorely lacks? Are we willing to treat sports as a discipline on par with science and math? Are we willing to talk to our school to include sports education as an integral part of our school curriculum? Are we willing to encourage our children to pursue sports seriously? Are we willing to contribute to setting sensible benchmarks of success at the school and community levels? Are we willing to invest and maintain a well-functioning gymnasium in our housing colonies? Finally, are we willing to embrace and enforce a culture of fitness on ourselves and our families? There is a lot of non-glamorous work that needs to be done but we as individuals have a very important and tangible role to establish this culture if we do decide that sports matter.

On the flip side, it is equally fair to say that the most of the work that needs to be done is highly distracting from the real problems that we as individuals, families and communities face. We can, therefore, choose to not dedicate our personal resources in establishing a sporting culture at this point and hence don’t necessarily care about how we perform in the Olympics. After all, we cannot compete on everything, with everyone at all instances! To take this decision, and to actually to mean it and be comfortable with it, requires courage and a strong sense of self-awareness.

Either way, there’s a decision that needs to be made.
Until then we should not lose a sense of reality as we bask in Abhinav’s glory, we should not shed crocodile tears at our medals tally and we should not indulge in false introspection; for each one of those are simply foolish!