Cocky People

The people who participate in the Olympics are very amazing.  They have worked years to be there, and they all have great talent.  These people handle their successes in different ways.  It’s great to see the people who come from behind to be out the competition, when people’s expectation for them were nearly nothing.  But, there is also the other extreme.  These athletes are the ones that go into the competition expecting to win everything, and then they get nothing.  They are caught up too much in their pride and arrogance, and for it, they aren’t rewarded.  It just costs them dearly.  I don’t know if you’ve figured out how I’m talking about yet, but here he is:

Bode Miller

Bode Miller is an amazing athlete.  He is an alpine skier, and he went into the Torino Games with a chance at winning five medals.  His odds were very good, seeing all the other competitions that he has won.  From the first day, he didn’t impress me.  Walking into the opening ceremonies, he didn’t smile, and he didn’t wave.  He just acted like he was much better than anyone else.  Maybe he was, at the time, but he certainly isn’t anymore.  Then, throughout the week, he continued to do things that not only bugged me, but everyone.  It was easy to hear the reporter’s tone getting annoyed as he told of one more thing Bode had done.  He skipped practices or only used twenty minutes of his hour, or he didn’t go to inspections.  And then to top it all of, Bode was seen at bars.  Why in the world would you want to get drunk while you were at the Olympics???!  This annoyed me to no end.  His reactions were always the same, “I’m hearing feel the true spirit of the Games.”  Bode was not feeling the true spirit.  In fact, he missed it all together.  Given, the Olympics has to seem like a giant party, but they point is also to compete and do well.  Bode did not do this.  I understand how hard he’s worked to be there, and then he pretty much threw it all away.  How can he live with himself??  There was difficulty in the events he entered, but he can’t blame it all on luck that he didn’t win.

Then, you have his personal website: joinbode.com.  Bode had many commercials talking about his different views on life.  In a couple of these, it didn’t make sense.  His logic was very confusing and it took multiple times to figure out what he was saying.  Then, he has one that talks about validation.  He says that he doesn’t need anyone to tell him what they think and that their opinion doesn’t matter to him.  Well, it should matter a little more, because his awful attitude is hurting him.  Oh, and by the way, he looked slightly drunk in all of these.  Maybe that’s just what he looks like….

NBC did a final interview with him.  They asked him a lot of questions and his general attitude was, “I don’t care about you.  I’m too self-absorbed to worry about anything else.”  Bode talked about how he had watched the movie Miracle.  When asked about his Olympic dream, he said that he had always imagined that he would be the underdog coming in and beating everyone.  That would be very cool, but he needed to understand that he had to opportunity to win, but he didn’t care enough.  Bode said that you needed to have people like him so that the underdog stories could take place.  Lame.  Bob Costas was really ripping on him in the end.  He said (and truer words have never been spoken), “Eventually if you don’t care, people aren’t going to care about you.”  

Now I’m going to go back to the reason why I wrote this blog.  The whole Bode thing just happened to be a precursor.  I want to talk about cocky people in general.  It makes me so sad to see people with excellent talent becoming conceited.  They have so much going for them, but by being so proud, they’re wrecking so many good things that could happen!  It’s no fun to be around those you feel that they are superior to you.  I’m so sorry if I’ve ever given off this feeling, and I’m really trying to work not to.  People need to learn that they really aren’t that much better than other people.  Sure you could be better in school or sports or anything, but that doesn’t make you a better person.  These people have weaknesses just like everyone else.  Lots of times, these problems are a lot worse than the people they are judging themselves to.  So, just a note to you conceited/arrogant/self-absorbed people:

YOU AREN’T BETTER THAN US, SO GET OVER YOURSELF!