With the tragedies of Sandy Hook, Hurricane Sandy, our national deficit and what’s going in Syria one would think that no one would care about Lance Armstrong.
We have better things to worry about right? Right?
Heck YES!
And that’s why I wasn’t that intrigued with the entire Lance Armstrong scandal – years ago it was obvious that Lance was taking performance enhancing drugs, that he was throwing some of the people that were closet to him under the bus, and that he dumped Sheryl Crow. I could care less that he was finally admitting it. I didn’t give it much thought because well, let’s face it he is just the next athlete in a very long line that has taken performance enhancing drugs that has disappointed his fans and disgraced a great sport – moving on.
Until a few nights ago when I checked my twitter stream and saw a barrage of tweets with the hash tag #doprah. Not only was the hashtag hysterical, appropriate and clever it peeked my curiosity.
I turned on the TV. And I watched in awe as Lance tried to answer Oprah’s questions sincerely. Boy did he try. But all I saw was a man that was admitting his “major flaws” as he called it with absolutely no remorse. To me, it seemed that he was only sorry because he got caught, because too many fingers were pointing at him.
And that’s when I started to care.
I started to care about his mother, his children, his ex-wife, his current wife and the LiveStrong Foundation. They had live through these lies and Lance Armstrong’s arrogance. The LiveStrong foundation is a foundation that I personally supported, I donned the yellow bracelet, I read their newsletter, I love their emails. I feel a little cheated. Imagine his children, his mother, the Foundation? All defended Lance (as any mother and child would) but now what? How do you recover from this?
I thought of my children whom I never want to feel that insecure, so insecure in their abilities that they have to lie to get what they want. I don’t necessarily fault Lance for taking the drugs, it the old adage “everyone’s doing it.” I think his “major flaws” were the lies, the arrogance that he would never get caught, the lawsuits he filed against those that were telling the truth all in the quest of trying to control and cover up so many things that were out of his control.
I wonder what would have happened if he admitted so many year ago to using these drugs the minute the story was leaked? Not much I am sure, now its a web of lies that even Lance can’t get out of.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive”
Then I started to think about my life, how do I drive home to my children the importance of being honest, respecting others, respecting yourself and never to jeopardize your integrity? I know that Lance’s mother didn’t think she raised a liar, so where does the disconnect come from? The fame? The fortune? The glory?
How does it go so wrong? I’m not sure if we’ll ever know that answer, I guess all we need to do is to take care of our children the best we can, drive home some of the most important life lessons:
1. Be honest with yourself and others
2. Respect and love yourself and others
3. Liars always get caught.
As I step off my soap-box I will not watch the second part of his lies, well, right now I am saying I won’t watch, and I will certainly stop caring about Lance Armstrong and any other athlete that admits to taking performance enhancing drugs.
There are more important things in the world to worry.
Unless of course, if Derek Jeter admits something so incredulous than I will know that there is no hope in the world for any sport.
Derek, you’re clean, right?
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