“The temptation to quit will be the greatest when you are about to succeed.”
-a Chinese Proverb.
As a former basketball coach, quitting is never in my vocabulary. We may fail to achieve our desired goals, but we will finish the game until the final buzzer sounds. We have lost games, but regardless of the final score, I make sure that we will hold our heads up high, knowing that we gave ourselves the best chance to succeed by playing.
Amid adversity, quitting may seem the easiest way to end the challenge we face. Indeed it may end the current challenge, but in one way or another, it will still find its way back to confront us. Staying the course and taking challenges head-on affords us to learn from them.
Our learning will help us quickly get through adversity when faced with a similar scenario.
The pandemic experience and how we handle it now ensures that we are future-proof when another pandemic hits us. As a sports columnist with no sports events to cover, I could have just called it quits and stopped writing altogether. Happily, I continued writing even with the challenges of finding materials to write about.
As we slowly move to a post-pandemic state and sports events regain traction, there will be more writing materials. If things are halted again, the pandemic experience has already equipped us to adjust and cope.
To all the athletes and coaches reading this column, we are nearing the post-pandemic stage. We have survived two years of sports in the pandemic with all its challenges and uncertainty.
To all sports event organizers, harness the power of technology to bring fans back to the games they love, whether in a face-to-face setting or online.
Change is always challenging. Uncertainty drives us to consider quitting. When thoughts of quitting enter our minds, we reflect on the experience.
Find a similar path we have taken before and pick up a point or two on how we managed and survived that experience. Never quit.
As the Chinese Proverb above states, the moment we decide to quit might be the last instance before our success. We will never see success if we choose to stop.
“We don’t quit. We don’t cower. We don’t run. We endure and conquer.”
- Kobe Bryant.