“Don’t un­der­es­ti­mate me. I know more than I say, think more than I speak and no­tice more than you re­alise”—Un­known

Trinidad and To­ba­go is in a dif­fi­cult place right now. Sport can make a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence in this coun­try’s cir­cum­stances.

How­ev­er, sport is al­so a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of so­ci­ety at a par­tic­u­lar point in time. There is no hid­ing place in the world of sport.

Per­for­mance and re­sults will al­ways tell the tale. It’s not to say that ex­cus­es can’t be made or neg­a­tive re­sults can­not be ra­tio­nalised. But the facts nev­er lie, they can be dis­tort­ed or ma­nip­u­lat­ed, but in the end, dis­tor­tions and ma­nip­u­la­tions fool no one.

Prob­lems aren’t solved and progress isn’t made. In sport there is a say­ing - you can’t fool the truth. You can make ex­cus­es but you will nev­er im­prove us­ing ex­cus­es.

How do some suc­ceed while oth­ers don’t or on­ly have fleet­ing suc­cess? It takes dis­ci­pline. Dis­ci­pline in all as­pects. Even the dis­ci­pline to not make ex­cus­es. Quan­ti­fy­ing suc­cess, even hap­pi­ness can be a big chal­lenge. Emo­tions and feel­ings are sub­jec­tive, and de­pend­ing on cir­cum­stances, how you feel can change in sec­onds. How­ev­er, there is a sig­nif­i­cant body of re­search that there is a di­rect cor­re­la­tion be­tween con­sis­tent ex­er­cise and pos­i­tive feel­ings of well-be­ing, suc­cess, and hap­pi­ness. That con­sis­tent ex­er­cise makes you feel good about your­self and gives you con­fi­dence.

There is a cor­re­la­tion be­tween our men­tal, emo­tion­al, and phys­i­cal well-be­ing and how we feel in gen­er­al.

Is it that there should be a greater em­pha­sis on health­i­er lifestyles? Most times when we think and talk about sport it’s with a fo­cus on high per­for­mance sport.

Olympics, World Cups and World Cham­pi­onships. Notwith­stand­ing that, it’s not a case of one or the oth­er but an ac­cep­tance that there needs to be more bal­ance in our out­look. As men­tioned ear­li­er sports can­not op­er­ate in a vac­u­um. If as a so­ci­ety we aren’t men­tal­ly, emo­tion­al­ly, and phys­i­cal­ly fit—not one at the ex­pense of the oth­er. Then sports will re­flect where we are cur­rent­ly.

Trinidad and To­ba­go isn’t a healthy place or space right now.

Where are we head­ing as a coun­try and so­ci­ety? Re­gard­less of our be­liefs, choic­es, views, and opin­ions. The re­sults speak the truth. Change be­gins from the in­side out. In sports if you aren’t hap­py with your per­for­mance and want to im­prove. You can’t fool your­self. You have to do the work and take the nec­es­sary ac­tion. It’s not about blame or ex­cus­es. You have to do the work re­quired.

In­di­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly we have to push the out­er lim­its of our hu­man spir­it. It’s the on­ly way we can un­lock our ul­ti­mate strength and po­ten­tial and rise to the top. What­ev­er one may de­fine the top as.

We have to stop feel­ing un­com­fort­able and dig a lit­tle deep­er to turn neg­a­tiv­i­ty around. We have to forge from the Love of Lib­er­ty a new vi­sion.

This may be a mi­nor de­tail to many. But it’s no­tice­able that we don’t sing our na­tion­al an­them loud and proud. Many of us seem to be em­bar­rassed that we can’t sing or car­ry a tune.

You may well ask what’s the rel­e­vance. Pay at­ten­tion. How many times while watch­ing an in­ter­na­tion­al sports event do you see sports­men and women singing their coun­try’s an­them loud and proud and some even shed with­out an once of shame long tears.

Rep­re­sent­ing their coun­try mat­ters. They un­der­stand the sig­nif­i­cance of the op­por­tu­ni­ty and mo­ment. It’s a mat­ter of pride and achieve­ment. It re­flects a sense of men­tal and emo­tion­al well-be­ing.