Rainy Day Healing

Making My Peace … with learning life’s lessons while watching the Olympics

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games is not only about sport – it’s about life’s lessons. Observe what a winner does. Observe what a loser does. But not everything in sport is about winning and losing.

I observed handball players fight tough for each possession of the ball, knocking their opponents to the ground – then extending an arm to help them up again. Play resumes.

I observed triathletes, after 100 minutes of fierce competition in the swim, cycle and run, sprint to the finish line with six competitors finishing with not a minute between them, only mere seconds. The time between first and sixth was 40 seconds.

I observed the thought before the action, the vision before the view, the plan before the play, the practice before the performance, the disappointment before the dream, the discipline before the rhythm, the trepidation before the courage, the stillness before the speed, the ultimatum before the win.

I observed tears of joy, tears of pain, tears of triumph, tears of loss. Emotions that come and go within seconds.

Making my peace with learning life’s lessons while watching the Olympics, I learned the following:

• A minute is a long time in competitive sports
• Energy must be conserved so that it can be available when it is needed most
• Thinking is as important as doing
• Doing beats overthinking
• Instinct is as important as thinking
• Intuition is as important as rational thought
• Peripheral view is as important as laser vision
• Unnecessary actions must be eliminated to keep an eye on the prize
• There are rarely second chances
• There is no room for negative thinking
• The person bothered by a fly is the person bothered by life
• Be small to dream big
• Be big to accept the small
• A smile does go a long way
• When everyone falls the last can be first
• When limits are known they can be pushed
• Extending your limits can make or break you
• To propel forward, maximise the force and minimise the drag

Martina Nicolls: Rainy Day Healing – MAKING MY PEACE