Uncertainty and promise
From last week, numerous sports events have already been canceled or postponed. The most recent international sports event that faces uncertainty is the Tokyo 2020 summer Olympics. While the Japanese government was adamant about pursuing the games, recent developments of the pandemic worldwide had them backtracking from continuing the games to the possibility of postponing the games.
Very recently, on March 22, 2020, the IOC announced that they would come up with a decision on whether the Olympics either go as planned or postpone it to 2021. Hours later, Canada became the first country to announce that it will not compete at the Summer Olympics.
It is an unfortunate development to the summer sports spectacle we have all been accustomed to watching. It will also impact our preparations and possibly our participation with several qualifying games already postponed. Without qualifying games, our athletes face a bleak prospect of competing. But is competition all there is at this point?
We come to realize that a lot of things catch our attention. We are maybe missing on the essentials: family and prayer, meaningful connections, and caring for each other.
We are already forced to stay and work from home. It has paved the way for more family time and, of course, prayer time. Perhaps the last decade had us too busy adapting to the fast pace of the new millennium. We forgot to make real connections. We are virtually connected 24/7 but talking and celebrating life got lost in its digital translation. We became too transactional in the way we deal with others forgetting to ask how they are doing. It is a promising start after all of this is over.
The absence of sports events to cover and write about also had me asking, where do I get things to write? What do I write? Sports and life are not too much far apart. They do complement, and we need to look into the connections.
While everyone and everything is uncertain over the Covid-19 pandemic, we can only hope and wish for the promise of a better future after this is over.
Growing up, we were able to survive and grow without 24/7 connections. We were content with getting sports news, albeit delayed. We survived then, and we will also survive this. Sadly, a pandemic needed to remind us of it.
While everyone and everything is uncertain over the Covid-19 pandemic, we can only hope and wish for the promise of a better future after this is over. MARK PAUL SAMANTE Columnist