“Success”

Most of us like the idea of success, and we desire it for our kids. We hope that we also can achieve it for ourselves—but what is “success”? And what are we prepared to jeopardise for success?

Of course I want to talk about the Olympics. If you are anything like me you have spent a few too many late nights watching your favourite events. I have gleaned a number of observations about “success” from these great Olympic Games in England.

Badminton does not often get world attention. Four teams, however, in the doubles competition, were disqualified for not trying to win. Badminton is a game I love and it is very sad to see it getting bad press. The reason these players were deliberately losing against weaker opposition was to guarantee themselves an easier run the medal round. They were sacrificing honour for what they considered to be success—in effect they were cheating the system in order to win.

And then we see Australia’s swimming star, James Magnussen (The Missile) being beaten into second place by .001 of a second. Is James therefore considered to be a failure and not a success? Second in the world by one-hundreth of a second and by many he is deemed to be unsuccessful? Here is a guy who has sacrificed thousands of hours of training; hundreds of 5.00am starts and put his life on hold while he focuses on this one goal. He is the second best in the world—failure or success?

Then there is the story of your Australian table tennis champion, Will Henzell. Will is ranked 139^th in the world. Some would say he shouldn’t even have been at the Olympics but then what happens? He wins through to the third round of the singles competition, dispatching two players ranked in the top 50 then narrowly loses to the 14^th seed. Will’s commitment to his sport is extraordinary. He left Australia when he was just 14 years old to live near his coach in Sweden so that he could refine his game and has won 9 Australian championships since then.

One of the great sayings associated with the Olympic Games surely defines success for us:

“The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”

The Olympic Patriarch, Pierre de Coubertin, gained the idea for this phrase from a sermon given by Bishop Ethelbert Talbot at a church service for Olympic champions during the 1908 Olympic Games. The good Bishop connects us with words from the Bible and he may well have been thinking of Hebrews 12: 1-2 where the writer to the Hebrews encourages by urging us to:

“ …throw everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith.”

Success then surely has something more to do with the journey, which is often struggle, and hard work, and deep commitment. The role-model, in the Hebrews quote, is Christ himself. And so in the after-glow of these wonderful Olympic Games here is a new paradigm for us to consider as we measure success and as we encourage it in our children and aim for it ourselves. May God’s grace give you the strength to grasp hold of this lofty challenge.

David N Williams
Chaplain