“We see these athletes do superhuman things. They are still just human.” – Adam Rippon (discussing Simone Biles, choosing to pull out of the Olympics gymnastics finals)
“As much as I’m disappointed, I know that when I step on the track I represent not only myself, I represent a community that has shown great support, great love … I apologize for the fact that I didn’t know how to control my emotions or deal with my emotions during that time.” She added, for her fans, “Don’t judge me. I’m human, I’m you. I just run a little faster.” – Sha’Carri Richardson, runner who was disqualified for the Olympics due to failing a test for marijuana in her system
“I know it might not make sense that someone who writes for a living, literally, could find herself so unable to say what needed to be said. But that’s the truth. I was wounded, & I waited too long.” – Best-selling Christian author Shauna Niequist, answering critics as to why it took her a long time to speak out about her father having to step down from a Chicago mega-church, due to many allegations of sexual improprieties
Shauna is human, too. We are all human. That doesn’t excuse or explain away our mistakes. Most of us ended up paying some sort of consequences for our mistakes. And the truth is, most of us are so much harder on our own selves than anyone else is, when we disappoint ourselves and we disappoint others, by not living up to the standards which we have created for ourselves. Mistakes are part of being human. Imperfections are part of being human. Falling down sometimes is part of being human. Not living up to our own, or to others’ expectations all of the time, is just one part of our being human.
Not being able to finish the Olympics, dashing the hopes of yourself and so many others, or not being able to even attend the Olympics and represent your country, due to an emotional slip-up, or being a wordsmith and yet not being able to find the right words to say about your father (and pastor) being publicly disgraced by his own egregious misdeeds, are all tough, “on display” events that most of us will never, ever, even come close to experiencing. The old saying goes, “The higher you climb, the harder you fall.” The most amazingly talented people among us, have put fear aside, to see how far they can climb with their passions and their abilities and their aspirations and their strengths and their powers, and we are so inspired by them. Yet we also put them on these gilded pedestals, as if they are emotionless statues of perfection. Still at the same time, how quick we are to judge these colossally talented people, and to deride them when they fall down from their great heights, and lie broken. We forgot that they were never statues. They are humans.
Perhaps it is easier for us to see wildly successful people as other-worldly superheroes. “I’m not that talented. I could never do that.” “He was born with all of that ability. It’s easy for him.” “She had a leg up. She’s naturally beautiful, or a genius, or from a rich family.” Schadenfreude is the German word for pleasure felt when someone else experiences misfortune. Don’t worry or be ashamed about having felt schadenfreude. Everyone has felt schadenfreude one time or another. It’s only human to do so. Sadly, we most often feel schadenfreude towards those who have roused us to our own great heights, by being amazing examples of all that humans are capable of doing and of being.
Perhaps what we are mostly upset about when someone doesn’t live up to “the hype”, is the very real reminder that we are all human, even those humans among us who seem more like other-worldly superhumans. Maybe that scares us or disappoints us about ourselves. Maybe when the mighty fall, we have to come to the realization that perhaps we ourselves are just too scared to test the heights of our own strengths and powers. When we see that someone is human, by having fallen down, we also realize that it was this very same human who did some incredibly amazing and difficult achievements, in the first place.
We will all fall down at times, and we will rise again. It’s the human in us. We all have our own unique abilities that we get inspired to explore, and to grow, and to hone, because of the others who have shown us the way, by making the utmost of their own special skills and talents and gifts. As humans, we have a choice, we can sneer at the fallen, or we can offer a hand of compassion, to pull them back up. Our deepest shared humanity is always inclined to extend a hand.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
