Never Give Up!

My family and I are not big sports-watching people in general, but man, oh man, do we love the Olympics! They are so exciting and joyful and heart-rending at the same time. Of course, a lot of what makes the Olympics so special is that it is so difficult to get there, and then even more difficult to medal. A performance or game at the Olympics is often the culmination of years and years of monumental effort. There is a whole lot of pressure from media, fans, coaches, and the athletes themselves, to give their absolute best.

Just this past week, my family and I watched as, Roman Sadovsky, a young figure skater from Canada competed in his first Olympics. The first night, he competed in the men’s short program for the Team competition. He fell once, but got back up and finished his program. It did not go very well, but it wasn’t a disaster. However, the next time he was competing it was in the long program for the team competition. He had a devastating performance. Roman fell time and time again, and you could see his spirit crumble before your very eyes. And even though he is a world-class skater, he sat with his head down the entire time his scores were being given. It was heartbreaking to watch and I may have shed a few tears over it!

But the next day he posted on social media that even though he had a rough couple of days he was hopeful and ready to go for it again in the individual competition!

A couple of days later it was time for the individual competition to begin. When it was Roman’s turn to skate, my girls and I were all hoping and praying that he would be able to have a good performance, but seconds after he took to the ice, disaster struck as he fell. Again.

I remarked that if that had been me, I would have wanted to either sit down on the ice and cry or walk straight out of the stadium and never come back! For all I know, Roman felt the same way, but instead of doing either of those things, he got back up and continued to skate–not once, not twice, but each and every time he fell.

The discouragement and the heartache he felt clearly showed on his face, as he placed very last: 29th out of 29 skaters. He didn’t even score high enough to be able to skate his long program in the next phase of the competition, and so his Olympic dreams were over.

As a family, we talked about how he probably wanted to just get on the plane and come home. But the very next day, he posted again on social media saying that the sun was shining and he was heading out to cheer on the rest of Team Canada in their events.

There’s a Japanese saying that says, “Fall down seven times, but get up eight.” That means that all we have to do to be successful is get up one more time than we fall! We don’t have to succeed at everything all the time, we just need to succeed one more time than we fail.

Mahatma Gandhi said, “We may stumble and fall, but shall rise again. It should be enough if we did not run away from the battle.”

It is easy to keep going when life is going smoothly. It is easy to keep trying when our efforts are successful, but when all our jumps seem to end in falls, and all our hard work feels pointless, it is very hard indeed. But the good news is that refusing to run away from the battle IS enough.

I have talked with many friends going through hard times who have said things like, “Well I just keep going because I don’t have any other choice.” It may feel like that at the time, but the truth is we all have a choice. We choose to get out of bed in the morning when we don’t feel up to it. We choose to keep going when we feel like quitting. Each time we refuse to run away from the battle, we choose life and courage and faith.

My friends, sometimes our jumps in life land with thrilling perfection, and sometimes, in spite of all our best efforts, they end with us crashing to the ground. But I hope the next time you feel like quitting you remember Roman Sadovsky, painfully getting to his feet time and time again to finish his skate; refusing to quit–no matter what.

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