These Are My JOTtings...

Plan of Attack? Lose, if the Cost of Winning to Harm Another

Prompt for January 6th: Nancy Kerrigan has her future as an ice skater threatened by an attack on her most prized possessions, which are her legs. You call this a "Fun Fact." Are you kidding me?

People go to jail just to help a rival win a skating meet! Were they serious?!! What were they thinking?!! Tanya Harding should have hung up her ice skates and walked away from the sport, if this was the best she could do.

You want me to dream up some sort of dastardly deed that would be equal to this insane scenario, just to be able to win this 30-Day Blogging Challenge on Writing.Com. Are you kidding me?

That does not compute! (I know this is just a writing activity, but please... That is not something I want to even imagine.)

"What would be your plan of attack?" I would LOSE! Like Frederick in the book, All The Light We Cannot See, I would pour the water out at my feet, and say with that stalwart young man, "I will NOT do it!"

I don't need to win that badly.

Winning is never important at the expense of someone else's feelings or their personal safety.

My heroes are the people, who finish, when there is nothing to be gained, when there is no one to see them finish and when the Victory was won by others...minutes or hours ago.

I love the climax of the movie, Cool Runnings, which is about the Jamaican bobsled team, that lost badly in a race at the Winter Olympics in 1988, but they finished the race carrying their sled. I weep every time I watch the end of this movie. (I have tears welling up as I type this.)

I love to watch the British runner Derrick Redmond finish in last place at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona in the 400 meters semi-final race after he tore his hamstring and walked crying across the finish line with his arm over the shoulder of his father. I weep when I see this, too.

I have people ask about my own races as a runner in my fifties. I rarely place, but I usually finish. I have come to cherish the finish line, especially when I know, that I did my best in the race.

How do I want to be remembered as a winner? I want to be remembered as someone, who finished the race. I tell people, "The Finish Line IS my Trophy!"

I'm a member of the Rising Stars Program for 2016-2017