Perspective
Sharon Koehler
Artistic Stone Design
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Popole Misenga defied the odds to become an Olympic athlete. It’s up to you to decide how to handle adversity. |
Not too long ago, we were all watching the 2016 Summer Olympics, held in Rio. The United States wasted no time scoring the first gold of the games, and earned an impressive 121 medals – 46 gold, 37 silver and 38 bronze – their biggest haul ever, not counting the boycotted 1984 Los Angeles Games, or the 1904 St. Louis Games, when hardly anyone else showed up to compete.
Some interesting things stand out in my memory from the 2016 Summer Olympics. The Italian Beach Volleyball team had an athlete that served a “skyball” that routinely goes 50 – 70 feet in the air. The bicycle road race course went through the Brazilian rainforest. That rainforest produces 20 percent of all the oxygen on Earth. Speeds on the course reached 60 miles an hour. Imagine hurtling down a hill at 60 miles an hour without the protection of a car! Uzbekistan had a woman gymnast competing in her seventh Olympics. She was the oldest female gymnast in Olympic history. It takes a lot to be an Olympic athlete. It takes some athletes more effort than others.
For the first time in Olympic history there was the Refugee Olympic Team (ROT). Did anyone besides me notice that? A team of 10 refugees came to the Olympics with no home country to represent. No country to be proud of them, no teammates that shared their ups and downs, no family rooting for them, no flag but the Olympic flag to fly, no one to fight for except themselves, for their pride, for their honor.
So for some perspective, imagine you are on the highway driving to your first job of the day and the work truck breaks down.
You call the office and they get upset because you are screwing up the whole schedule for the day. They call roadside assistance, but it’s going to be a while. You’re late for your first countertop install, and you’re definitely going to be running late for the rest of the day, if not totally rescheduling everything. To top it all off, it’s starting to rain. You and your partner jump back in the truck, roll up the windows and hit the A/C because it’s hot in the cab. The final straw– the A/C starts blowing warm air. OMG, Worst Day EVER!!
Is it really? Consider Yusra Mardini, a Syrian refugee who was fleeing her war-torn country. She and her sister made it to Turkey. They were trying to cross the Aegean Sea to get to Greece in a dinghy with 18 other people. The motor failed. Yusra and her sister jumped into the cold sea and for three hours they pushed the boat to land and safety. Some reports say she and her sister were the only ones in the group that could swim. Other reports say they were helped by two others. Either way, Yusra helped to save the lives of 18 other people. She was then and is now still a teenager.
Now, you get to work one day and as you open the door, you hear alarms going off. In truth you hear multiple alarms that you have NEVER heard before, and don’t even know what they all are for. The office area looks fine, so you walk into the shop. Alarms are buzzing; you hear electricity crackling and see some smoldering wires and outlets. Error messages are reading on all your big equipment and nothing works, not even the overhead lights. Being the safety conscious soul you are, you dial 911 for the fire department. They come and look everything over and determine that your building was struck by lightning from the predawn storms that rolled through just a couple hours before. Your company is essentially “shut down” until you can get everything repaired, and if necessary, replaced. The list of people to contact is overwhelming. And what are your employees going to do while the shop is down? You realize that this is not a simple fix, and this could take weeks if not months to fix, depending on how quickly repairmen, electricians and parts can arrive. You call your insurance company and very quickly get the feeling that they are going to be a pain in the you-know-what. Honestly, you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.
A little perspective might help. Popole Misenga, a refugee from The Democratic Republic of the Congo, was separated from his fleeing family when he was 9 years old. He spent eight days alone wandering the forest. He was finally rescued and taken to an orphanage. There he took up Judo. A boy with no family found sense, discipline and focus in the sport. As he got better and better, he started to compete, but when he lost, his coach would lock him in a cage for days at a time only feeding him coffee and bread. Frustrated and fed up with years of abuse, while at The World Judo Championships in Brazil, he fled and sought asylum in Brazil, which he was granted. He is 24 now and has not seen his family since he was 9. He has no idea what happened to them. But, he overcame more hardship than any of us will likely experience to become an Olympic-caliber athlete.
These are only two of the many stories the Refugee Olympic Team can tell. The thing is, no matter what the circumstance, these people chose to “rise above.” Now truthfully, we as mere hardworking mortals will probably never compete in the Olympics, but we can all “rise above” in any circumstance. It’s a choice we make.
When you need some perspective in the future, think about these men and women that defied the odds, rose above, and persevered. Then look at your broken truck or your smoking, smoldering shop and decide how you want to handle it. It’s your choice.
Sharon Koehler is a 10-year veteran of the stone industry and currently head of marketing for Artistic Stone Design in Richmond, Virginia. She has been a regular contributor to various trade magazines for several years. Please send your thoughts on this article to sharon@artisticstonerichmond.com.