Bri­an Lewis

Trinidad and To­ba­go is at a very im­por­tant pe­ri­od of time in its his­to­ry. The good and pos­i­tive as­pects of Trin­bag­on­ian life are cur­rent­ly over shad­owed as what we stand for as a peo­ple and a na­tion is un­der scruti­ny. Our met­tle and the courage of our con­vic­tions are be­ing test­ed like nev­er be­fore.

Are we reap­ing what we sow?

Op­ti­mism and pos­i­tiv­i­ty has run in­to the brick wall of de­spair and fear as the red bul­lets cre­ate hav­oc.

This is the time for courage, fear­less­ness and an in­domitable will. Sport must stand shoul­der to shoul­der with all law abid­ing and right think­ing cit­i­zens in the ef­fort to over­come the chal­lenges.

Every death at the hands of the law­less and cold heart­ed is a stab at the heart of our beloved coun­try. We must not suc­cumb to the de­spair and hope­less­ness. We must be hon­est with our­selves. Crime is the symp­tom not the root cause.

No ef­fort to build a bet­ter T&T can suc­ceed with­out char­ac­ter and in­tegri­ty.

Mon­ey can't buy in­tegri­ty, peace of mind, gen­uine love, char­ac­ter, true loy­al­ty and sus­tain­able ex­cel­lence. Mon­ey can't buy the fierce and in­domitable will brav­ery and courage need­ed to make a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence. Mon­ey can't buy sin­cere pas­sion and en­thu­si­asm.

Giv­en a choice be­tween mon­ey and in­tegri­ty what should the choice be?

What is the price of our in­tegri­ty? What mat­ters most? Some peo­ple claim that un­sat­is­fied greed is de­stroy­ing the fab­ric of our so­ci­ety and that in­tegri­ty and char­ac­ter are now com­modi­ties to be trad­ed.

Law abid­ing and right think­ing cit­i­zens live in fear while those who have al­lowed self­ish am­bi­tions to close their minds and hard­ened their hearts against the best in­ter­est of the na­tion ap­pear to have the ad­van­tage.

All who de­sire to make things bet­ter must wash their hands and pu­ri­fy their hearts. The bat­tle is well and tru­ly on. But re­gard­less of how big the lead the crim­i­nal el­e­ment may have at this time.

Fear not. We will not run the race in vain nor will our work be use­less. We must press on in faith­ful ser­vice of our coun­try.

We must be fear­less in ex­pos­ing those who do a dis­ser­vice to the best in­ter­est of the coun­try, its fu­ture and the youth of the na­tion.

We must main­tain in­tegri­ty to­wards the promise made to the youth of the na­tion and the un­born gen­er­a­tion. Na­tion build­ing has nev­er and will nev­er be easy. The his­to­ry of mankind pro­vides am­ple proof that many bat­tles have to be fought, lost and won.

We will hit the bump in the road but we must not be dis­cour­aged. Nor must we com­pro­mise on our com­mit­ment.

To many, it doesn't mat­ter whether they fol­low the rules or break them as long as they come out on top. It doesn't mat­ter what kind of per­son you are as long as you get the job done. Mov­ing up is more im­por­tant than the way you move up.

An em­pha­sis on re­sults and mon­ey at the ex­pense of char­ac­ter and in­tegri­ty pro­duces short term ben­e­fits and usu­al­ly cre­ates long term prob­lems.

We will nev­er lose if we em­pha­sise that char­ac­ter and in­tegri­ty are not ne­go­tiable.

Let's fo­cus on what mat­ters; to be suc­cess­ful not just in what we do, but in who we are.

As much as we all want suc­cess and mon­ey if it comes at the ex­pense of char­ac­ter and in­tegri­ty the cost is too high as hu­man life has lit­tle or no val­ue.

This col­umn ex­tends deep­est con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly, friends and col­leagues of Dana See­ta­hal SC.

Bri­an Lewis is pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the Olympic Com­mit­tee.

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