Lance Armstrong – Write 2 Be

So the topic of conversation in the news these days seems to be the whole Lance Armstrong mess. Now I wrote a post previously regarding my thoughts about this topic but that was before there was any actual proof, and an Oprah interview around the corner sealed with a confession. Well while almost every news anchor and talk show host seems to share the position that this is a disgrace and that his actions were simply the most horrible thing that an athlete has ever done, I still feel the same way that I did when I wrote about it before, empathetic.

One news anchor even went so far as to call Lance Armstrong a disgrace to all humankind. I have to admit that comment shocked me because are we really going to put Lance Armstrong in the same category as mass murderers and rapist (because those people are one’s I consider to be a disgrace to humankind). To tell the truth it made me a little angry.

What right does anyone have to judge someone else on mistakes that they have made? Are any of us that perfect that we can really throw stones from our glass houses? I mean obviously everyone doesn’t go around using steroids to perform better in a sport but there are so many mistakes that people make on a regular and daily basis that other people could judge just as harshly. There are murderers who have been treated in a kinder fashion then the media is treating this man. He may have been a world class athlete and a wonderful philanthropist (which everyone in the media seems to have forgotten about) but he is still a human being that makes mistakes just like any one of us.

We hold people, particularly those who are in the media spotlight, to such high standards that are impossible for anyone to measure up to. Why do we keep expecting people to be perfect when we can never be? It’s a shame that we are always so busy searching for the bad in people that we overlook all of the good in them. There are so many people who hold themselves back from so many opportunities because they’re too afraid that they can’t live up to being perfect. When are we going to just accept people for who they are, mistakes and all, and love them instead of choosing to judge them?

I have the Write 2 Be Authentic and Imperfect… What is your Write 2 Be?

Jimmetta Carpenter

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FALL FROM GRACE. These are the three words being used to depict the athlete Lance Armstrong and all that he accomplished throughout his entire career. Of course we all know that Lance Armstrong has just recently had his seven Tour de France titles stripped away after being found guilty of “doping” during his career and those races. On top of that he also had major endorsement deals that rescinded their offers due to the controversy.

Now I don’t know whether or not Lance Armstrong is in fact guilty of doping in order to win all of those races that he won or is this just a witch hunt that they are on and pinning the bulk of the blame on him. Frankly I don’t really care if he did or didn’t because in my eyes what they are doing to him and to his name is a disgrace. Stripping him of his titles doesn’t change the fact that he did win those races and I don’t know too many people who could have done what he did, on or off drugs.

What is really a shame is that in order to punish him for a mistake that they have absolutely no real tangible proof that he did (only hearsay by his so called ex-teammates and results from blood work that could very easily have been medication from his cancer treatment) they have tainted his name along with all of the good that he has done. His foundation, the Live Strong Foundation does good work for cancer research and it also goes to great lengths to provide free services to help anyone who is affected by cancer and cannot monetarily take care of those responsibilities, and recently he was forced to appoint someone else as the head of it in order to preserve its integrity.

There are a lot of people who are angry about this and disgusted with Lance Armstrong but let me tell you why I am not one of them. It is because we are all human and we do not have the right to pass personal judgments on anyone else not knowing what they live through on a daily basis. I’m not naïve to think that Lance might not have doped up in the latter part of his racing career but I certainly don’t believe that he did in the beginning. What does stripping him of his titles do, really? He knows he still won them. The world knows that he still won them. When they talk about stripping his titles in the news they still refer to him as the one who won 7 Tour de France races.

What it does do is send a message to others, especially the children of the future, that if you dare to make one mistake, that suddenly means that all the good that you did do means nothing now. Is that really what we want to communicate to people? That if, God forbid, you mess up in your life that you don’t deserve another chance and that you have to be beat down for your mistake continuously.

We make mistakes in life. We do things that we once said we would never ever do in a million years. People don’t just wake up with the idea of doing something morally and ethically wrong. People don’t intentionally set out to make their lives a circus. People do expect that if they make a mistake that it will not erase every good thing about them. You expect to be given second chances and you expect to not be deemed a bad person simply because you made an error in judgment. What ever happened to forgiveness and understanding? How are we supposed to ever learn from the mistakes that we make if no one will ever let us forget them?