You may remember from my last post that my son was quite sick (croup). Well that sickness jumped to my wife, then to me. All three of us were sick for several days, making it a rough few days. I stayed home in bed the past three days, trying to get better. Not fun being sick - and not fun being sick on your birthday! - but at least there were a couple of bright spots.
One was being at home with my family for a few days. Again, we were all sick, so it's not like we were playing games and going out and having fun. We stayed at home, did nothing, and tried to get better. But it was still nice to be together.
The second thing was that I got to watch a lot of the Olympics! Sick at home in bed, what else am I going to do? I love sports and the Olympics, so I wasn't complaining about this part. In hockey, the quarterfinal game between Canada and Latvia was amazing, and the women's gold medal game was fantastic. Seeing Jennifer Jones win gold was cool too, as was the gold for the women's bobsleigh team. It's great to see Canada doing so well, and it's really fun watching the Olympics...and yet...constantly in the back of my mind is the fact that they spent $57 billion in setting up these games. No matter how fun and exciting the games are, can we really justify spending that much on sports when that money could be used to do SOOO much good around the world? There are starving people who need food, wells that need to be built for clean drinking water, homeless people who are just trying to stay warm at night, and thousands of other social issues... These are matters of life and death, and we spend $57 billion on sports?? Yes, the Olympics are a global stage, yes they are about uniting mankind and humanity on something we can all enjoy, yes they are about dreaming big and striving for your goals, yes it's about inspiration. Yes, clearly it's about more than just sports. But are we really uniting mankind when half the world's population is too poor to have a TV or internet to follow the Olympics, and when many countries aren't involved? Is someone who is wondering where their next meal will come from - and if they'll even last till then - really going to be interested in who the best skier in the world is?
I wasn't intending to write a blog on social conciousness when I started this post, but it's near and dear to my heart, and as much as I love watching the Olympics, I can't separate it from the bigger picture of a broken and hurting world. It just seems like we have our priorities off-kilter. Imagine half that money was used for social good - $28.5 billion. How far would that go?? Now imagine you were one of those starving/thirsty/homeless people, and you found out that $57 billion was being spent on sports while you were on the verge of starving to death... Changes things a bit, doesn't it...
One was being at home with my family for a few days. Again, we were all sick, so it's not like we were playing games and going out and having fun. We stayed at home, did nothing, and tried to get better. But it was still nice to be together.
The second thing was that I got to watch a lot of the Olympics! Sick at home in bed, what else am I going to do? I love sports and the Olympics, so I wasn't complaining about this part. In hockey, the quarterfinal game between Canada and Latvia was amazing, and the women's gold medal game was fantastic. Seeing Jennifer Jones win gold was cool too, as was the gold for the women's bobsleigh team. It's great to see Canada doing so well, and it's really fun watching the Olympics...and yet...constantly in the back of my mind is the fact that they spent $57 billion in setting up these games. No matter how fun and exciting the games are, can we really justify spending that much on sports when that money could be used to do SOOO much good around the world? There are starving people who need food, wells that need to be built for clean drinking water, homeless people who are just trying to stay warm at night, and thousands of other social issues... These are matters of life and death, and we spend $57 billion on sports?? Yes, the Olympics are a global stage, yes they are about uniting mankind and humanity on something we can all enjoy, yes they are about dreaming big and striving for your goals, yes it's about inspiration. Yes, clearly it's about more than just sports. But are we really uniting mankind when half the world's population is too poor to have a TV or internet to follow the Olympics, and when many countries aren't involved? Is someone who is wondering where their next meal will come from - and if they'll even last till then - really going to be interested in who the best skier in the world is?
I wasn't intending to write a blog on social conciousness when I started this post, but it's near and dear to my heart, and as much as I love watching the Olympics, I can't separate it from the bigger picture of a broken and hurting world. It just seems like we have our priorities off-kilter. Imagine half that money was used for social good - $28.5 billion. How far would that go?? Now imagine you were one of those starving/thirsty/homeless people, and you found out that $57 billion was being spent on sports while you were on the verge of starving to death... Changes things a bit, doesn't it...
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