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Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Sport is a force for good

by

Brian Lewis
1241 days ago
20211004

"But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like ea­gles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint" (Isa­iah 40:29-31).

As each of us jour­ney through life we dis­cov­er even­tu­al­ly that as a re­al­i­ty of the va­garies of hu­man be­hav­iour there are three types of friends. True friends, band­wag­on friends and fair­weath­er friends. There is a dif­fer­ence be­tween a truth teller and a crit­ic. A crit­ic drags you down to make them­selves feel su­pe­ri­or and a truth teller cor­rects and in­structs out of a de­sire to see you be bet­ter.

For­give­ness doesn't mean we for­get what some­one did to us or that we be­come best friends with them. For­give­ness is about mak­ing peace with your past so you can move for­ward in­to your fu­ture. If you can­not for­give you will al­low bit­ter­ness and re­sent­ment to write your sto­ry.

Lead­ers can­not af­ford to hate as it gets in the way of strat­e­gy. "No wheel moves with­out fric­tion."

Mon­day (Oc­to­ber 4) is bud­get day in Trinidad and To­ba­go. In the lead up to the bud­get there were many opin­ions and com­ments - dire pre­dic­tions. COVID-19 has put the en­tire world to the test. It has put hu­man­i­ty to the test.

While the eco­nom­ic tra­vails star­ing the twin is­land re­pub­lic isn't the first or sec­ond and it wouldn't be the last, it has en­veloped a new gen­er­a­tion - the so­cial me­dia gen­er­a­tion at that.

For all the ma­te­r­i­al and tech­no­log­i­cal gains and in­ven­tions and ad­vances that hu­mankind has made, our emo­tion­al, men­tal and spir­i­tu­al re­silience and ma­tu­ri­ty has been found want­i­ng. In­se­cu­ri­ties, lack of self es­teem and self con­fi­dence have man­i­fest­ed. Dri­ven by fear, many have lost self be­lief.

Sport is in­te­gral to our cul­ture and those of us in the vine­yard of sport must trans­form that be­lief in­to ac­tion. Ser­vice to the youth and young peo­ple through sport is im­mea­sur­able.

Old school clich­es re­main rel­e­vant - A ris­ing tide lifts all boats, the re­al pow­er of sport lies in the hearts and minds of the youth and young peo­ple - the foot­ball play­ers, the ath­letes, the sports­men and women.

Give peo­ple a fish and you feed them for a day, teach peo­ple to fish and feed them for a life­time. We must teach peo­ple how to fish.

With so much anger, hate and tox­i­c­i­ty preva­lent in our coun­try we must hold fast to the pow­er of see­ing the best in peo­ple and the be­lief that every­one de­serves an op­por­tu­ni­ty - A leader's du­ty, oblig­a­tion and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is to make things bet­ter in par­tic­u­lar for the vul­ner­a­ble and less for­tu­nate. We must walk the talk.

Sport is a force for good, mak­ing a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence and not a force for poor gov­er­nance, cor­rup­tion, abuse of of­fice and to fa­cil­i­tate peo­ple with hid­den and self­ish agen­das. There are many peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go giv­ing ex­tra­or­di­nary en­er­gy, time and ideas to build­ing back a bet­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go.

While oth­ers may have cho­sen the easy op­tion - be­come bit­ter and re­sent­ful . There are pa­tri­ots who re­main re­silient in the face of im­mense ad­ver­si­ty.

Re­gard­less of how oth­ers may be­have or cir­cum­stances they dis­play grace, dig­ni­ty, for­bear­ance and con­tin­ue to be a class act. Don't crack un­der the pres­sure. Keep look­ing ahead, re­main fo­cused and in­domitable in do­ing what you be­lieve needs to be done or said even at the risk of be­ing mis­un­der­stood or mis-char­ac­terised. They are truth tellers and true friends, chang­ing lives for the bet­ter.

If we con­tin­ue each day to be in­spired to nev­er cease work­ing for a bet­ter, fair­er and more just and equal Trinidad and To­ba­go. The good we do, the dreams we keep alive will con­tin­ue to in­spire and mo­ti­vate.

"And we know that God caus­es every­thing to work to­geth­er for the good of those who love God and are called ac­cord­ing to his pur­pose for them" (Ro­mans 8:28).

Rest in Peace, Jam­ilya Muham­mad. You have been an in­spi­ra­tion and mo­ti­va­tion to many. Gone too soon but we lean not on our own un­der­stand­ing.

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.


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