The One Love con­cert, head­lined by the leg­endary Ja­maican reg­gae artiste Miguel “Siz­zla Kalon­ji” Collins took place at Sound Forge, Port-of- Spain, on Sat­ur­day.

A sold-out crowd came out to see the reg­gae icon who de­liv­ered a two-hour set.

“Siz­zla Kalon­ji” Collins in­cor­po­rat­ed the T&T na­tion­al in­stru­ment, the steel­pan, in his per­for­mance and in­vit­ed Ian “Bun­ji Gar­lin” Al­varez on stage to freestyle, lat­er thank­ing him for be­ing one of the main peo­ple be­hind the show.

He called for peace and de­nounced vi­o­lence, es­pe­cial­ly among youth in­flu­enced by “gun chune” and crit­i­cised the re­gion’s (Caribbean) food sys­tems and called for agri­cul­tur­al self-suf­fi­cien­cy. And in the end, he told the sold-out crowd: “Live good.”

Both the Siz­zla con­cert and the T&T ver­sus St Kitts and Nevis foot­ball game were held on Fri­day (June 6) at Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um (Port-of-Spain), with a re­port­ed 20,000 at­ten­dance. Re­flect­ed the rain­bow na­tion that is the Twin Is­land Re­pub­lic. Amongst the au­di­ence in both events were all races, gen­ders, re­li­gious and po­lit­i­cal per­sua­sions. It again showed that sport, mu­sic and cul­ture, can be a uni­fy­ing and ed­i­fy­ing force. It sig­nals a long­ing —a re­flec­tion of what we as a peo­ple re­al­ly want—uni­ty, peace, har­mo­ny and an iden­ti­ty that re­flects the best ver­sion of our­selves.

Even as we seek so­lu­tions for the myr­i­ad of chal­lenges fac­ing us as a peo­ple, a na­tion, a so­ci­ety and a com­mu­ni­ty. Re­gard­less of our dif­fer­ences, we have com­mon as­pi­ra­tions.

I be­lieve it is by hav­ing an ethos of “live good”, we can find so­lu­tions to what may ap­pear to be un­solv­able prob­lems. When we “live good” for some­thing, we will find the tenac­i­ty, per­se­ver­ance and courage to be the best ver­sion of our­selves.

Two ex­am­ples I be­lieve of this are:

1) Por­tu­gal’s win over Spain in the Na­tions League Cup Fi­nal. Cris­tiano Ronal­do (40), track­ing back more than once, in­clud­ing win­ning the ball off Lamine Ya­mal (17). Ronal­do, in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia re­port­ed, had an in­jury go­ing in­to the match. He is quot­ed as say­ing: “I pushed, be­cause for the na­tion­al team you have to push. I had been feel­ing it for some time, but for the na­tion­al team, if I had to break my leg, I would have bro­ken it. It’s for our na­tion.”

2) First ma­jor fi­nal be­tween Car­los Al­caraz and Jan­nik Sin­ner, the two best play­ers in the world played an epic five hours and 29 min­utes French Open fi­nal at Roland Gar­ros, in which Spain’s Al­caraz re­cov­ered from two sets down—and saved three cham­pi­onship points—to re­tain his French Open ti­tle af­ter a fifth set match tie-break. Al­caraz is on­ly the third man to win a ma­jor fi­nal af­ter sav­ing a cham­pi­onship point since the Open era be­gan in 1968.

Sev­en-time ma­jor win­ner Mats Wi­lan­der, who won the pre­vi­ous longest Roland Gar­ros fi­nal in 1982, said noth­ing comes close to this. “I thought: ‘This is not pos­si­ble—they’re play­ing at a pace that is not hu­man’.”

What mo­ti­vat­ed Al­caraz’s fight back—what is the in­spi­ra­tion be­hind his tenac­i­ty and per­se­ver­ance? It can’t be on­ly mon­ey. He lives good for some­thing big­ger than him­self.

Con­trast the Ronal­do and Al­caraz ex­am­ples with Dwight Yorke’s com­ments af­ter the So­ca War­rior’s 6-2 win over St Kitts and Nevis. He said T&T’s So­ca War­riors need to de­vel­op a mean streak. “We are a re­ac­tive team rather than a proac­tive team.”

Yorke is al­so ea­ger to stop a long-stand­ing habit of T&T teams start­ing slow­ly. He de­scribed it as a curse.