DARE TO EXCEL!
If we learn any one thing from the Olympic Summer Games being held in Athens, Greece this week, let it be that we re-gain our national will urging that we dare to excel!
We have, in recent decades, allowed a tragic malaise to develop which has crippled our will to win; deadened ambition and remained as a cumbersome weight on the fattened forms of self-satisfaction..
We are being told to be more than mere spectators ; active players; participants rather than casual onlookers.
Our intent should be not so much on setting new records, but in intentionally, honestly and eagerly working to exceed what has gone before. It is a national attainment for all of us as we witness Mary Lou Retton of 1984 fame, congratulating Carley Patterson, from Baton Rouge, LA.. of 2004, as one congratulates the other – the old welcomes the new – as she sets new records in gymnastics in the current series of Olympic Summer games. Other names are being added daily, but those two are symbolic of the re-birth of initiative, drive, enthusiasm and the will to win which permeates many of the teams we have in action in the ancient homeland of the Olympiad concept.
Vast portions of our life today do not, in any way, resemble “games” - certainly not competition played for enjoyment. We are beset with social, religious, economic and other differences which are deeply ingrained in historical circumstances , and our wars and rumor thereof, are our burden. We have carried the load long enough. We have lived by the rules imposed upon us by such handicaps and we need to study and re-study the basic rules of conduct to see what can be eliminated and determine that which must be nourished and sustained. We do that in sports each time new records are established. We improve the manner in which we use the gifts of agility and performance we possess. The basic, almost mechanical nature of movements we are “built” to perform do not change. The setting of new records comes from our newly found discovery of better, more efficient ways to make use of the abilities we have had all along ....untrained, untried, unused. Discovered and disciplined - they make us pioneers, inventors, leaders, innovators, record-setters in sports or in other fields of human activity..
We are in special need of new understandings of the basics of government. Many of our old records - of which we are justly proud - can be
bettered. We cannot remain spectators and gawkers. We must be dedicated to Olympic-style dedication. We must take part in the activity to merit it's blessings
A.L.M. August 19, 2004 [c455wds].
