#1 ·
I was watching some highlights from the recent international gymnastics meets last night, and it got me thinking about how much our modern perception of "success" has shifted toward a purely mathematical outcome. We live in an era where if you don't come home with a piece of metal around your neck, the media—and even some fans—treat it like you weren't even in the room. It’s almost as if the years of grueling, repetitive training, the physical toll on the body, and the sheer psychological grit required just to stand on that floor are all rendered invisible if you don't land on the top three steps of the podium.
Don't get me wrong, I love the thrill of the podium. There’s something visceral about seeing an athlete reach the pinnacle of their discipline. But I can't help but feel like we're losing the narrative of the "near miss" or the "valiant effort." I remember watching a different sport a few years back—a swimmer who pushed their body to the absolute limit, finished a fraction of a second off the qualifying mark, and ended up in fourth place. The coverage was almost entirely focused on the "failure" to medal, rather than the fact that they had just performed at a level that 99.9% of the human population couldn't dream of. It felt incredibly reductive.
I think this mindset bleeds out of sports and into our everyday lives, too. We’ve become a society obsessed with the "podium moment." Whether it's career milestones, social media engagement metrics, or financial benchmarks, we tend to ignore the beautiful, messy process of striving and only celebrate the final, polished result. It creates this weird, constant anxiety where you feel like if you aren't "winning" in a measurable way, you're just wasting your time. But isn't the growth that happens during the struggle actually the more significant part of the human experience?
There is a specific kind of dignity in the person who finishes just outside the medals. They’ve faced the same pressure, the same exhaustion, and the same fear of failure as the gold medalist, but they just didn't catch that perfect moment of execution. To me, that resilience is just as compelling as the victory itself. When we only talk about the winners, we're basically just looking at a spreadsheet of results instead of watching a human drama. We’re stripping away the nuance of effort and replacing it with a binary: you either won, or you lost.
I’ve noticed that even within niche communities—people who follow specific disciplines like gymnastics, figure skating, or even high-level chess—the conversation often devolves into "Who got the most points?" rather than "Did you see that incredible technique?" or "How did they recover from that stumble?" It feels like we are training ourselves to be spectators of outcomes rather than witnesses to skill.
I'm curious to hear what you guys think about this. Do you think the obsession with medals and podium finishes is necessary to drive the level of excellence we see in modern athletics, or is it actually detrimental to how we value the athletes themselves? Does a "successful" career in any field require a trophy, or is there more to it than that?
Don't get me wrong, I love the thrill of the podium. There’s something visceral about seeing an athlete reach the pinnacle of their discipline. But I can't help but feel like we're losing the narrative of the "near miss" or the "valiant effort." I remember watching a different sport a few years back—a swimmer who pushed their body to the absolute limit, finished a fraction of a second off the qualifying mark, and ended up in fourth place. The coverage was almost entirely focused on the "failure" to medal, rather than the fact that they had just performed at a level that 99.9% of the human population couldn't dream of. It felt incredibly reductive.
I think this mindset bleeds out of sports and into our everyday lives, too. We’ve become a society obsessed with the "podium moment." Whether it's career milestones, social media engagement metrics, or financial benchmarks, we tend to ignore the beautiful, messy process of striving and only celebrate the final, polished result. It creates this weird, constant anxiety where you feel like if you aren't "winning" in a measurable way, you're just wasting your time. But isn't the growth that happens during the struggle actually the more significant part of the human experience?
There is a specific kind of dignity in the person who finishes just outside the medals. They’ve faced the same pressure, the same exhaustion, and the same fear of failure as the gold medalist, but they just didn't catch that perfect moment of execution. To me, that resilience is just as compelling as the victory itself. When we only talk about the winners, we're basically just looking at a spreadsheet of results instead of watching a human drama. We’re stripping away the nuance of effort and replacing it with a binary: you either won, or you lost.
I’ve noticed that even within niche communities—people who follow specific disciplines like gymnastics, figure skating, or even high-level chess—the conversation often devolves into "Who got the most points?" rather than "Did you see that incredible technique?" or "How did they recover from that stumble?" It feels like we are training ourselves to be spectators of outcomes rather than witnesses to skill.
I'm curious to hear what you guys think about this. Do you think the obsession with medals and podium finishes is necessary to drive the level of excellence we see in modern athletics, or is it actually detrimental to how we value the athletes themselves? Does a "successful" career in any field require a trophy, or is there more to it than that?