Saturday, January 26, 2013

The character Judgement of Lance Armstrong

Since I am a fan and close follower of Lance Armstrong, in a recent discussion with friends, I encountered the following "questions/allegations" (seeking my views on the topic)
- Lance Armstrong is a liar
- He cheated by taking performance enhancing drugs
- Its against the true essence of sport, which actually builds character
- Due to his actions, a lot of innocent people didn't make their grade
- So if the majority of the cyclists take EPOs, he is a great cyclist since he beat them all, but that doesn't absolve him of lying, cheating, etc
...and so on

My first reaction was to defend my hero, someone whom I have always looked upto, read both his books, who inspired me to get going on a bike. But I soon realized the futility of the whole argument.

Person A was commenting on the life of Person B and Person C was stepping in to defend Person B. Neither A, B nor C are connected in any way.

I would say that all of us are on are individual journeys through life with the sole objective of realizing and living our potential and growing within to become better and helpful human beings. This journey normally lasts multiple life times until such time as "we get it"
Our gurus have tought us that this "getting it" is all about unlearning all that we have picked up along the way.

We don't really build character, we uncover it by our Sadhana and our responses to life experiences.

I believe that no one human can comment on the journey of another. It would be a mere second hand judgement.

I also believe that while we unlearn our conditioning, we may not be perfect in the moralistic (wordly/society) sense of the word. We all would probably exhibit some character flaw or other. Most of us have some or the other skeletons in the cupboard. However standing in judgement of these flaws as we see in others, is a useless exercise and at best has gossip value and is also an indication of having those flows ourselves. Instead it would be good to reflect on all these experiences (even of observing others and reading about others) and seeing how we can improve our journey towards uncovering our beautiful character.

The observation is external but the application is internal
Moralhood is a fine state to visit once in a while, but we shouldnt get it home - Richard Bach

In essense, we need to observe and learn from the journey of others but work and focus on our own journey.

Am I a MORE peaceful, MORE loving, MORE joyful person today.

Side Note: As for Lance Armstrong, just like I acknowledged his massive strength in fighting cancer, enduring gruelling training rides (yes despite EPO, one needs to bust ones ass on the saddle to ride), dealing with turbulent personal issues, starting a cancer foundation,etc,  I also acknowledge his weakness of falling prey to desires, lies, cheating, etc.

I choose to focus on the former and simply be aware of the latter.

Why is a WILL called a will

I think a will cannot be different from what you are living. Essentially it is just that you trust a few people to carry out what you would have done if you were living. Hence if you plan to give away all your money to charity once you are dead, you may want to do the same while you are alive.

I believe a will is about ensuring that all your "material" possessions are properly distributed as per your wishes to the relevant people. I also believe that a will is not about carrying on your legacy. If you want your lifes work to continue after your death, you would want to establish an organisation (system) which will continue to function as per your established "vision" even after you are gone.

It may not be a great idea to document your ideas in a will, while expecting that someone will work on them while you are gone. Its rare. People have their own "wills" to live by.

You may document your vision and share it with people. But at the risk of repeating, you may want to establish a system which will execute on these ideas even while you are away. E.g. a business, a trust, an NGO, a political party, etc (if you really care about these ideas to persist)