When my children were young I was fond of saying, "Well, you can do [whatever stupid thing you are about to do that I, with my superior knowledge gleaned from greater life experience, have already told you will not end well,] but don't come crying to me when [whatever dire thing I have predicted] happens." My kids hate that phrase, but I have always felt it was important for them to recognize when someone with better information is warning them off of the action they are about to take, they should listen. And if they choose not to, they are, in fact, the architects of their own demise.
Just to be clear, that doesn't mean I won't be standing there with them to help them pick up the shattered pieces. Of course I will. I am their mom, and I'm in it with them, for better and for worse, for the rest of their lives. I will be that little voice in their heads, whether they want me there or not, and that is where I will stay.
If there is one thing I find intolerable in our current narcissistic culture, it is the inability of virtually everyone to take responsibility for their own stupid mistakes. There is no bad outcome for which blame cannot be assigned to someone else, no matter how small or big the transgression. It seems to be endemic in our culture, systemic in everything from government to sports to education.
Believe it or not, this little rant does not arise courtesy of the Tiger Woods dramatic presentation for this week. [Truth be told, I genuinely cannot comprehend why an overpaid prima donna athlete behaving badly off the course corresponds to multiple international press conferences to explain what we already knew - he is human, he has too much time and money on his hands, and he has used it unwisely. To everyone, I say, don't come crying to me. See how well that works?]
No, the straw that broke this particular camel's back can be laid at the feet of yet another elite athlete exhibiting a monumental breakdown of common sense. And the only thing more stupefying than the international revelation of his poor sportsmanship is the collective yawn that his own particular world has issued upon hearing from him at this inopportune point in time.
The Olympic games are, above all, supposed to be a display of the world's greatest athletes coming together in unity for the sake of some greater good. Peace, harmony, higher level endorsements - take your pick, it's a bonanza of blessings with plenty for all. Whatever else happens, though, the Olympics are, in a sense, supposed to embody the joining of hands around the world's campfire while we all sing Kum Ba Yah and share s'mores.
There are spotlight events, certainly, which are eagerly anticipated by people across the globe, and which receive the lion's share of the televised attention. [Since these events are the money makers, they probably deserve the greater televised time commitment and attention, and I don't suppose anyone is complaining about that.] But there are lesser events, also, shown on a national stage once every four years, and which probably survive on the brief, but financially critical exposure they receive. I for one, applaud that, because there should be room enough for everyone at the round Olympic table, if the Olympic spirit means anything at all.
Unfortunately, that uneven attention also gives athletes who are inexperienced at being the focus of the world's so-called hard news press corps unequal power in making remarks on that same international stage. We are not talking about professional athletes who have microphones shoved in their faces after every weekly televised performance, who have advice and guidance on handling that attention, and often still screw it up. We are talking about mostly young, impulsive athletes, risk takers by nature or they wouldn't be elite at such a young age, who are normally guided and shielded from the moment they get up in the morning until they retire at night, suddenly unleashed on their own to say whatever they may really think without someone to put the right words in their mouths.
It's a recipe for catastrophe. Spoiled individuals who would otherwise not have a forum from which to make stupid remarks are suddenly caught in the limelight, and they cannot resist the temptation to justify themselves at the cost of whomever gets in their way.
It is one of those athletes who has cast his narcissistic pall over what otherwise appears to have been as successful an event as is possible where a participant was killed right before the opening ceremonies. [A brief disclaimer here - I have not watched more than a few minutes of the entire spectacle this year, because I swore off the Olympics some years ago in the wake of a judging scandal which has soured me on my former favorite sport, ice skating, pretty much forever.]
The athlete in question is a Russian figure skater, and it is not his remarks themselves that I would question, nor his right to make them. I believe that a sport is shaped by its participants, so who better to determine the future course than one who has been elite in the performance of that discipline?
But, as my mother used to say, there is a time and a place for everything, and the Olympics is neither the time nor the place to complain about the standards for performance, especially after the medal has been won by someone else. I could have told him his complaints would fall flat. I suspect, if he shared his intention to reveal his own narcissistic vision of reality to anyone else, they probably did.
Unfortunately, his diarrhea of the mouth ran unchecked, and he became the poster child for everything that is wrong with our society in one ill fated moment. According to him, he did not earn the second place silver medal he was awarded, despite leaving the competitive arena for three years and trying to make his come back a scant few months before the main event. No, instead the sport should be changed to fit his particular strengths, and the athlete who was awarded the top prize was not worthy.
In other words, it's not FAAAA-IR. Wah.
I am sure many second place athletes have thought that before. I imagine more than a few were even correct in that opinion. We have seen athletes walk away from the podium and throw their floral bouquets or even take their medals off in a display of petulant poor sportsmanship which was usually roundly disparaged.
But never, in my memory, has an athlete on so privileged a stage had the classless lack of grace to insinuate that he lost because the broken eggs in the sports basket he chose were more valuable than the dozen that were delivered safely. And I am stupefied that anyone, to say nothing of the people in the highest levels of his sport, would not only not solidly condemned him, but even defend his rotten public behavior.
Timing is everything, and this was not it. If you want to change the nature of men's figure skating, then have an international conference and argue it out until you come to consensus. Cover it, don't cover it, talk about the rules, don't talk about them, whatever.
But do not, in the wake of losing the event, come out at the Olympic games and deliver a sanctimonious condemnation of the judging which pointed out that some of your eggs were broken. If he were my kid, I would call him a spoiled brat, and tell him to apologize to the winner, who has been wronged most greatly by his selfish actions.
The Olympics are not about one sport or one country or one person. The Olympics are about international peace and cooperation through sport. The Games themselves are the important thing, and they transcend the petty differences of the usual, every day world.
It is for that reason that they continued, despite the murder of athletes in the Olympic Village. Because Jesse Owens threw down the gauntlet for racial tolerance in the face of the world's most well known bigot on the stage of the Olympic games, it was the beginning of change. It was because of the transcendence of the Games over the individual that the Opening Ceremonies were celebrated a few hours after the tragic death of an athlete who dreamed his entire life of reaching that pinnacle. It is a testament to the dream of international unity that the games go on no matter what obstacles are thrown in the path. That is what makes them special.
It is disappointing that the highest officials in one of the most visible and popular sports at the Games didn't have the common sense to rein in their cranky athlete and send him back to the podium to make at least a superficial apology to the gold medal winner of the event. This apparently officially sanctioned temper tantrum will certainly come back to bite them down the road.
It is not only the sport of figure skating that suffers from this particular form of myopia, of course. It seems like wherever we look these days the media, and our own personal lives, are filled with people refusing to accept the consequences of their bad decision making. Whether it is fixing a speeding ticket, lying to parents or cheating on a spouse, passing the buck at work, or glorifying an athlete who takes steroids, we want to be conscience free. The end justifies the means, unless we get caught, in which case, it is everyone's fault but our own.
Perhaps the sport of figure skating should take a hint from Tiger, after all, and realize that the first step back to relevancy comes with an apology, whether sincere or not. And the second step is all about the actions. Nothing less than the legitimacy of the sport itself is at stake. If they fail to grasp the consequences, they have only themselves to blame.
If that happens, we can only hope that they won't come crying to us in the end.
