Young Athletes: Skip the Misery, and Go Right For Happiness and Fulfillment
Last modified 6 months, 3 weeks ago.
As a youngster, I regularly watched World Championship Boxing on HBO. This was way before fighting was as popular as it is today and grappling gyms were everywhere.
Anyway, towards the end of high school, and a few years afterwards, as well, I was preparing myself to start an amateur boxing career, too.
I was sacrificing just like the boxing heroes I had seen on television, like Salvador “Iron Lungs” Sanchez, Ricky Hatton, and Bernard Hopkins–especially Bernard Hopkins. Hopkins was a stalwart of discipline, determination, and overcoming the odds in boxing. Yes, talent is important, but that Hopkins became undisputed middleweight champion at 36 years old was a matter of his staunch discipline and hard work, as much as his talent, IMHO.
During a fall semester of college, at least three days per week, I would ride a bus 45 minutes north, get off at the bus stop, ride my bicycle six miles to the boxing gym, train for two hours, ride back, then finally, hop on the bus again to get back to school. I even kept a 4.0 GPA that semester, while taking tough classes, too.
Sometimes, while I was riding the bus, I’d say to myself, ‘Damn, this is a lot of work.’ I often felt alone. But I was determined.
Ultimately, my efforts came up empty… way empty.
My amateur boxing career never amounted to anything.
Looking back, it was a blessing…
Sports destroy life and limb. Before the internet’s explosion, perhaps it was easier to ignore the poor outcomes. Sure, you’d see Muhammad Ali with pugilistic Parkinson’s disease on television from time to time, but it might be a while before you ever saw or heard about it again. I hadn’t even heard of the tragic fate of athletes in other sports either, like Marco Pantani or Ayrton Senna. And the lives of Ricky Hatton and Oscar De La Hoya hadn’t yet come off the rails and into the public eye, either.
But nowadays, it’s impossible to turn a blind eye.
It’s a complete sadness to learn about modern fighters who were so celebrated, so successful, so rich, becoming so desperate, so sick, so lost, and so addicted to drugs after their careers were done.
What if these people with so much talent, work ethic, and energy had asked themselves when they were younger, ‘What would really allow me to be happy one day? How could I really use my talents and energies to make that happen?’
Would they still have decided to fight, ascend to the peak of their profession, and finally, suffer a harrowing downfall?
Only they can answer that.
I followed hyper-competitive and organized sports for a long time. I gave it a serious effort myself for years as a youth. And now, I am quite adamant that participating that way is not necessary for lasting happiness, nor is it necessary to develop one’s character fully.
If anything, I believe that there are much better ways to develop one’s character and mind.
If you have the character, talent, and work ethic to become a great athlete, then you also have the ability to become great at something that is far more compatible with real contentment, happiness, and fulfillment, as well as material success.
I could turn this topic into a book (maybe I will one day).
But for young athletes out there, as well as the parents that are overzealous, or perhaps trying to live vicariously through their children, I encourage you to ask yourself the following…
Do you really want to risk destroying yourself and your personal wellness in order to attempt achieving the ultimate in sports?
Does it make sense to have all the riches in the world if you are constantly in poor health and miserable?
Not all sports are equally dangerous, of course. But let’s not kid ourselves–I’m sure that if your sport produces horror stories, you’ve heard about plenty of them by now.
Is that what you want for yourself? Or for your children?
I am all about choice–I tend to be an inveterate libertarian. I say live and let live, live free or die, or hell, even live free and die. But I do hope that whatever choice you make, that you make it 100% consciously. Are you really keeping your own best interests at heart?
I say skip the misery and go for true happiness and contentment instead.