More thoughts on the olympics

After I my last post on the Olympics, I had this thought that I should do a follow up post. I really didn't think of it before, but it came to me; what are the changes in your life that you need to make to make your personal Olympic event a priority in your life? I want to spend more time serving people, but oddly, people don't come begging for service. So I think I need to overcome this whole awkwardness that comes with going out of my comfort zone and serving. Why is it so difficult to do nice things for others? It doesn't make sense. I know that I want to do it, and I would think that other people would want me to do it for them. But then there's this whole idea of 'what will it mean?'

Here's how it works. I'm riding home and I see someone sitting along the side of the road with a broken down car. If it's a women I wonder what she will think about being helped by a man. Will she think that I'm threatening or that I'm trying to pick up on her? If it's a man that needs help, will he not like the attack on his ego when I offer him assistance when any 'real man' would be able to solve the problem on his own. And thus I'm tempted to continue on without helping. And those are the easy, obvious opportunities to serve that I find so easy to pass by. Actually seeking out people who need served is far more difficult... although it really shouldn't be.

Now I'm going to completely change topics. Never mind the fact that it is the same post, I'm headed in a completely new direction and this is acting as a transition.

Why must everything be a competition? I know I've been posting on the Olympics and what we want to be the best at, but really when I look around it is the mediocre people who don't live their lives aspiring to be the best at whatever who actually make the biggest impact.

I think the most obvious example of this right now is the presidential election. There are a lot of people in this country who would make great presidents. I think those who would really be the best at it, wouldn't put themselves or their families through an election process because it's not worth it to them. They are also the people who aren't so proud to think that they deserve it and so proud to think that they don't need to ask for help. One of the biggest complaints the McCain campaign is making against the Obama side is his lack of experience. I see that as one Obama's greatest strengths. My hope is that if Obama gets into the White House he will say, "wow, I don't know how to solve that, but I know there are about 300,000,000 Americans and one of them is bound to have a good idea on the matter". And then he seeks different opinions, listens to all sides of the story and makes a decision based on the best advice available. And that's not to say that I've decided who I'll vote for, but I don't see experience in politics as a positive.

I got off topic. Why do we have to narrow it down to two people who we know are making campaign promises that they won't keep? It's just a competition to see who is better at campaigning, it's not a good way to choose the leader of our country. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a solution, but I don't like what we've got now. I don't have anything else to say now. I don't think I really finished my last point, so maybe I'll come back to it sometime.