Why Do We Love The Olympics?

the party is this way, mon

The London Games are over and so is another world wide event that brought us together, made us feel very American, and also made us realize how untalented we are. The Olympics is not my favorite sports event to watch, but somehow I still look forward every 4 years to see the human body being pushed to new limits. One thing is for sure, ever time I watch the olympics I realize that there's a lot of sports out there that I have no idea existed. I also love the fact that you can turn on the tv at any time of the day, and there's 'something' going on, especially this past Saturday night as we amused ourselves playing the Summer Olympics drinking game ... and yes, I'm hopeful one day there will be a beer pong category in the Olympics.

their athletic ability is amazing

But why are we so entertained by this event? Most of us will never throw a javelin other than in self-defense, and most of us will never enter a pool without floaties. Yet we enjoy every minute of it, every stride, every splash. Every 4 years I become an "expert" in every discipline; I think to myself "Wow, she's definitely winning gold" until the commentator says 2 seconds later "I just don't see her qualifying for the next round with this average performance ..." We probably know enough about 5% of the sports being played but we still watch everything, and sometimes we secretly say to ourselves "I can do that". The truth is, we can't. These are the best athletes in the world and we will never reach their level of skill. We would have to relive our lives. We would have to skip every desert we've ever had, refuse every morning we decided to sleep in, every party, every useless saturday watching tv, etc. We see 4 minutes of performance, but they have been preparing themselves for years for this one moment. And if we are never going to reach Olympic level, why do we sign up for 5k's, triathlons, sport leagues, etc? Because we are human, and we love to be better than the day before. Improving ourselves is part of feeling alive.

highlight of the event

Benjamin Franklin said, "Some people die at 25, but aren't buried until 75". When you quit your dreams, when you stop trying to become better, you might as well be dead. I know at 27 I will never be a professional soccer player, yet I still train, play, try to improve myself, even though I probably won't even reach the level I once had, I keep trying. 10 years ago, you could say all I had was soccer, today, soccer doesn't play a central role in my life, but I have achieved other things; graduated, work, travel. When you put it all in a balance, make sure today is better than yesterday, and work hard so that tomorrow you can continue this pattern. So, why do we love the Olympics? It's a party; it's a celebration of human accomplishments, and you know that none of us can say no to a party.