I just finished watching a movie called Bigger, Stronger, Faster, which focused on drug use. I really liked the way the narrator attacked the issue of steroids because though the focus was steroids the documentary seemed to be searching for something deeper, and the message came to me as a lesson in competition, specifically America’s attitude about competition. The focus of the message was not in attacking the physical aspect of taking steroids, but more so the mindset of taking steroids.
A big focus of the movie centers around proving that steroids are illegal in the USA yet have not been proven to be as destructive as they are perceived. This got me thinking and brought me to the first important lesson of the movie. That lesson is: anything in excess is unhealthy. Alcohol isn’t necessarily bad but it is destructive when consumed in excess; Vitamin C is great for your overall health but if you take it too much you can poison yourself. The list of examples goes on forever because anything and I believe everything in excess is unhealthy.
It is a flaw in human nature that more is always better. In the competitive world you can never get far enough ahead. Having things in excess is not just an accepted concept, but it is almost required in the world today. My mom taught me since I was a young kid that no human will ever again be perfect (This was a religious teaching that Jesus was, is and always will be the perfect human to walk the earth). This message resonates in me way deeper than the religious context because it is true. It seems that whenever we see an example of someone that has it all we find that they really don’t have it all; when we see someone that looks to have it all together we see that there is some empty void within themselves that they are trying to fill. When a person feels these shortcomings, they focus on gaining more of what they have or can gain in excess to fill these shortcomings.
The truth is that as humans we are not meant to be perfect and we are definitely meant to have shortcomings. These shortcomings are what keep us even as human beings. These shortcomings are what drive healthy competition. Humans should not concern themselves with being perfect instead they must focus on the pathway towards perfection. The pathway to perfection involves the character of a human being whereas being perfect is all in the perception of a human being.
This leads me to the one reason I will never do steroids (unless it would be for the medicinal purpose of keeping me alive): because it is cheating. The obvious edge that it gives athletes in sports isn’t even worth debating, but even for those not in competitive athletics the only non-medicinal use of steroids is a shortcut to some end that is unhealthy. Steroids are used by people to develop muscles in a way that they could never naturally build. I am a firm believer in hard work as it is one of the highest prioritized value in my life and I completely understand that even people that use steroids work very hard to gain the muscles they get (some people may even say they work harder than people who don’t take steroids, but that it also a by product of the fact that they took steroids so they can work longer and harder).
I can think back to high school when I was in physics class and our teacher allowed us to program whatever formula in our calculators (if we wanted to do the work) because he wasn’t concerned with us memorizing a bunch or formulas, instead he wanted to see if we were able to apply the formulas properly. I thought that this was a great tactic because it helped me as a student realize what is important to focus on in education, which is to apply my knowledge not just attain knowledge. Anyway, there were many times when students somehow got the answers to the tests and spent the night programming the answers into their calculators because they knew the teacher wouldn’t check their calculators as they were allowed to program whatever formulas they want. These students put in a lot of hard work in programming all those answers into their calculators, even more work than I did actually studying the material. The students imputing all the answers into their calculators hard work and my hard work studying was only different in one way, they were cheating.
Sure there were students who got much better grades than me in physics class but I feel that I gained more from that class than any of the students that cheated did. This is because I was working towards knowing everything that I was taught whereas the students were only concerned with showing that they knew everything that was taught. It is the same deal with steroids. If I want to be able to bench press 600 pounds but without steroids I cannot get 500 lbs up and I’ve worked as hard as possible then I should be content in the fact that I did everything in my power to try to put up that 600 lbs, but I feel short. When I take steroids I am overlooking the work I am capable of doing and only focusing on just putting up 600 lbs. As John Wooden said in his book Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court, “Too often we neglect our journey in our eagerness or anxiety about reaching the goal.” As people, and I think American’s are the best example, we are so worried about becoming perfect that we would compromise ourselves by taking a shortcut in our journey towards that perfection.
I want to know what is it that fuels this neglect. There are multiple things that drive people to neglect the correct path (the path that will bring true happiness) towards perfection. The first thing that is so prevalent in the world today is unhealthy competition. Now I am a basketball coach, so I am an advocate for competition and I believe it is the only way that one can improve but there is both healthy and unhealthy competition. Healthy competition arises from doing your best to become as successful as you are capable of becoming but also willing to accept the outcome of your best effort.
What I see within the capitalist mindset of many people today is an unhealthy approach to competition. Unhealthy competition is fueled by the desire to be better than the next person. Unhealthy competition arises when a person directs their attention away from themselves and puts it on the success of others. Comparison is what drives people towards unhealthy competition. Success and happiness will always be a personal matter and can never be determined by another person yet in the world we are always determining what, where and who we are by comparing ourselves to others.
To use a relevant current event we can look at Jeremy Lin. Many people are saying that the Warriors were stupid for letting Lin go last season. When the president of the Warriors was approached with the attack of, “what it the world were you thinking letting this guy go,” he replied that he already had a point guard, Stephon Curry. He then proceeded to ask the person who would he rather have as a starting point guard, Stephon Curry[1] or Jeremy Lin[2]. The person who posed the question silently moved on.
So who is the better point guard and why the heck was the Warriors office so stupid as to let Jeremy Lin go? The answer is that none of these questions matter. The fact is that Jeremy Lin and Stephon Curry both have shown success as starting point guards and who are we to judge the success of either of them. The Warriors are where they are now and the Knicks are where they are now and that is the way it is. As long as both teams and both players are doing everything in their power to be the best teams/players they care capable of becoming than they are both successful. Healthy competition would allow for the success of all parties involved.
Another thing that steers people off the correct path on the journey towards perfection is poor self-image. I think that this is one of the driving forces for steroid use outside of athletics. People want to portray themselves as something that they are not and so they artificially produce the results they want even if it may compromise their character. Whenever I think about self-image I think about the fact that I am not better than anyone but I am just as good as everyone. Poor self-image again is usually developed by comparing ones self to another. The fact is that you are who you are and he is who he is and you will never be him, so there’s no use to pretend or even try to be him. Too many people want to be something that they are not so they will forever struggle with self-image. The only time you can ever develop a healthy self image is when you accept who you are, accept your shortcomings, and walk down your personal path to perfection. You can always try to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, but no matter how perfectly you followed directions you will end up in a different place.
The last thing that I would like to discuss that drives people to neglecting their proper path is selfishness. Steroids are a drug and when abused can have the same effects on others that drugs such as alcohol or marijuana have on others. The drug becomes an obsession for the person taking it and can lead to the destruction of relationships and trust because the selfish drive of taking the drug.
For example, a wife may not want her husband to take steroids because it is illegal and the husband agrees. After a couple weeks the husband is exhausted like he’s never been after his workouts and seems to be getting weaker, which would all make sense because he is no longer taking steroids. In many cases I feel that the husband would then turn, because of his selfish nature, back to steroids and maybe secretly start taking them again. This was one of the examples in the documentary. A drug like steroids develops a selfish obsession with strength, body image and being better than everyone else. Using steroids for any purpose other than to cure a chronic or mortal disease is a completely selfish act.
I want to talk about America for just one second and think about why steroids are so prevalent in the culture of America as compared to other nations. The obvious reasons could be the wealth of Americans, the emphasis on image in America, or the competitive capitalistic mindset. What I believe is the driving force of Americans to take steroids is their undying desire to control everything and everyone. It is the same reason why America is a country obsessed with war.[3]
Many Americans would consider taking steroids in sport as wrong, but would have no problem with someone taking steroids outside of sports. There was a point in the documentary when they interviewed some military pilots that use drugs to focus and hone their concentration while flying. The comment that one of the pilots made when asked why he thought it was wrong for athletes to use steroids but it was ok for him to use them, his answer was something like, “because in sports there are rules but in war there are no rules.” This is the mindset of American competition in general.
Americans don’t see competition as a sport; Americans see competition as a war. Like Kendrick Lamar says in Ronald Reagan Era, “Cant detour when you at war with your city…When you fight/ don’t fight fair/ cuz you’ll never win.” This is the mindset of American’s that has been taught to us throughout the generations, and it is what I see defining Americans as a society. We have the power to fight unfair and unjust battles and we do just so we can exert our power. We selfishly flex our muscles to the world to show that we are better than anyone else and we are willing to do anything to stay better than anyone else whether it goes against the rules or not.
The steroid issue is one that brings together so many problems and issue that can be debated and discussed. When weighing the reasons for and against steroids for their physical effects, I think anyone would decide to take steroids. The problem I find with steroids are the forces that drive people towards takings steroids and those are to gain an unfair advantage over everyone else, because they have a poor self image and feel they are not strong enough to overcome their shortcomings without steroids, and because people are just plain selfish. I think that it is sad that any culture or persons would defend the use of steroids in any circumstance. I think that instead of producing strong people, steroids instead just exemplify the weakness of the individual.
If any of you reading this have any input on what you feel about the issue of steroids I would love to hear what you think.
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