COVID-19 is prov­ing, or maybe that should be pro­vid­ing, a sig­nif­i­cant test in so many ways. Cer­tain­ly, it's a men­tal and emo­tion­al test.

Our in­di­vid­ual and col­lec­tive dis­ci­pline are un­der the mi­cro­scope. Like all chal­lenges and ad­ver­si­ty, it brings out the best and worse ver­sion of hu­man­i­ty. These days adopt­ing an op­ti­mistic view of life and things have tak­en on po­lit­i­cal di­men­sions.  

It's as if it's no longer ac­cept­able to have an in­de­pen­dent life view and phi­los­o­phy.

If it's one thing I can at­test to is that ever since I was a lit­tle boy, my sin­gle-par­ent, moth­er (Jen­nifer) was in­tol­er­ant of neg­a­tiv­i­ty. Her gen­er­al at­ti­tude was once you see an­oth­er day above ground it's a cause for joy and grat­i­tude. Once you have life and you are alive you have a fight­ing chance. She saw life as a chal­lenge to be faced and ac­cept­ed.

Lis­ten! She would ad­mon­ish, wipe your tears, smile, get up and get back in­to the fight. It's the per­son who re­fus­es to quit that will make it.

Since COVID-19 hit T&T in March, last year, I have re­flect­ed on many of my moth­er's words, her in­domitable and fear­less at­ti­tude and per­sona. Her, at times, sto­ic de­meanour and charis­ma. Were it not for the rav­ages of Alzheimer's, I of­ten won­der what would have been her pearls of wis­dom to me.

For sure it wouldn't be a moth­er's lament but ex­hor­ta­tions: "Lis­ten Bri­an every day you above ground you are in with a chance, COVID-19 not go­ing to win. Live life!  You make your odds don't let any­body make it for you."

In the over­all scheme of things, COVID-19 has ex­posed all of us with­out ex­cep­tion to self-ex­am­i­na­tion and self-re­flec­tion. Will we come out of COVID-19 bet­ter or worse. How will we emerge? Many ques­tions to be an­swered. That COVID-19 will be beat­en, there ought to be no doubt. What will de­ter­mine how each of us come out of it will be de­ter­mined by our in­di­vid­ual ac­tions and mind­set.

It is in­ter­est­ing read­ing about and lis­ten­ing to the dif­fer­ent opin­ions about vac­cines. As it is about the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, like every­thing else, in­di­vid­ual opin­ions are shaped by at­ti­tudes and be­liefs.

Giv­en the emo­tion­al in­ten­si­ty, peo­ple have strong and firm views and I have found it im­por­tant for my own peace of mind not to take per­son­al or per­son­alise views and opin­ions that are ex­pressed. Most peo­ple aren't in­ter­est­ed in a di­a­logue. They have their opin­ion and they want to ex­press it.

For those of us in­volved in the Olympic Move­ment as far as we are aware the Games are very much on. The lo­gis­tics are com­plex- it's not your nor­mal Olympic Games that's for sure. It's go­ing to be a "Bio-Se­cure Bub­ble" Olympics, a ster­ile ex­pe­ri­ence with strict re­stric­tions and guide­lines.

I have been asked what do I think it will be like? My ap­proach to the COVID-19 Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games is a sim­ple one, fo­cus on our con­trol­lables. What's in our sphere of con­trol let's get it right. Let's not be dis­tract­ed. Let's stay fo­cused. I be­lieve it be­gins with each mem­ber of Team TTO ac­cept­ing and tak­ing per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for what's with­in their con­trol. We are all fight­ing to find a way for­ward.

One area of the sports sec­tor here in T&T that is with­in our con­trol is gov­er­nance. If sports stake­hold­ers don't ad­dress the gov­er­nance of na­tion­al sports or­gan­i­sa­tions, sports in the twin-is­land Re­pub­lic will con­tin­ue falling be­hind the times, some will even say the fu­ture is bleak. It's a theme we will re­vis­it in the next "Things That Mat­ter" col­umn.

Ed­i­tor’s Note:

The views ex­pressed by the writer are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee or T&T Com­mon­wealth Games As­so­ci­a­tion.