My husband and I watched the Olympics this week - both with mostly indifference. I watched while folding laundry, he while working on a computer program. Yet both of us looked up and paid attention when a skater wiped out. The network played it over and over and in slower and slower motion.
"Too bad," I said.
"I wish they wouldn't show it like that, " he commented, "I don't like to see them fall."
The next night was downhill skiing. An American athlete was heading down the slope when she lost control and fell, sliding out of bounds and out of any chance of winning a medal. Again we both looked up. I took notice, but my husband winced.
It was then that I realized the difference in the ways we looked at these failures. My husband is a dreamer. Not just a dreamer, but an achiever. I have never known someone who will pursue a dream with more fervent dedication and dogged determination. When he saw the athletes fall, he felt genuine empathy for their loss. He could empathize because as he has pursued his dreams he has fallen and been criticized and threatened. He has known the fear of these things and pressed on anyway. For him, the biggest loss is giving up.
Identity is not something you can purchase cheaply. The Bible says that Christ is able to identify with us because He suffered. You can sympathize with someone who has failed or been hurt, but you cannot truly emphatically identify with them unless you have experienced it yourself. I usually try to avoid pain and failure. But in doing so, I have closed doors that may have been great avenues of opportunity. I can't really identify with the Olympic athletes. I don't involve myself much in sports and I've never had a dream, or maybe, I've never had the willingness to pursue a dream despite the cost.
