Blog — Beyond the Silver Bullet

As a per­­for­­mance-ori­en­­ted ath­le­te, I stri­ve to do my best and keep on impro­ving every day. Opti­mi­sing my per­for­mance, men­tal abili­ties and mate­ri­als are part of my dai­ly life. Every pie­ce of the puz­zle is ana­ly­sed, opti­mi­sed or repla­ced if neces­sa­ry, until a hop­eful­ly per­fect who­le emerges.

In my search for how I might deal with per­so­nal­ly chal­len­ging situa­tions, I have come across various phi­lo­so­phies and arts of living. Ide­as of Stoi­cism and the anci­ent Asi­an world-views have been par­ti­cu­lar­ly appe­al­ing to me. In the­se, hap­pi­ness and unhap­pi­ness are seen pri­ma­ri­ly as human value jud­ge­ments and con­s­tructs of our minds. It is the human being who makes this world fair and just and jud­ges it.

In sport, win­ning and losing are known to be so clo­se, and yet the­re is a clear distinc­tion. The blink of an eye can deci­de whe­ther I lea­ve the com­pe­ti­ti­on venue as a radi­ant win­ner or a dis­ap­poin­ted loser. I prepa­re mys­elf for many things and hold fate lar­ge­ly in my own hands. But many unfo­re­seen events can also hap­pen. Luck and mis­for­tu­ne are very close.

Limits form an inte­gral part of our lives. As a com­pe­ti­ti­ve ath­le­te, I have come to know about various types of limits over the cour­se of my care­er — both men­tal and phy­si­cal. In sport, and also in my life in gene­ral, I get to know my limits and feel my way as I approach them. I have come up against cer­tain limits and lear­nt to respect them. Others I try to post­po­ne or over­co­me. And again the­re are some limits that have not yet been rea­ched and are wai­ting to be defi­ned anew.

Some years ago, I used to feel dis­ap­poin­ted if my sport­ing achie­ve­ments or tho­se of other para-ath­­le­­tes did not recei­ve enough reco­gni­ti­on in the media. Whe­re­as in the past, I usual­ly tried to find the fault in mys­elf, today I under­stand the mecha­nisms behind this phe­no­me­non, at least in part.

Inclu­si­on in sport

Sport con­nects peo­p­le and has the power to bring about a gre­at deal of posi­ti­ve chan­ge, inclu­ding in terms of inclu­si­on. A lot of pro­gress has been made sin­ce the start of my sport­ing care­er, with sport incre­asing­ly set­ting an exam­p­le in many areas.