Last week, many of you probably celebrated the Hallmark “holiday” of Valentine’s Day. While mine was once again spent working and then joining my family for a dinner at home, it did remind me that there are a lot of things we say we “love”. Do we even use that word correctly?
Being bilingual it’s interesting to note that the same word in English can be translated into Filipino in different ways depending on context. For instance: “I love food” and “I love you” use the same verb and have the same sentence structure in English, but in Filipino are translated as “Gusto ko ng pagkain” and “Mahal kita” with the verb “love” translated into different words “gusto” and “mahal“, respectively. And here you can see that there are different shadings of desire and commitment you can put into the word “love”.
When we truly love something, we put effort behind what we do in its service. When I say “I love triathlon” I’m not just going to go through the motions of training and racing, although those two things are rewarding and meaningful in themselves as well. I’m going to try and help improve the sport whatever way I can. The past few years it’s been about patronizing and publicizing the races that I believe help encourage the growth of the sport, and providing (needed and appreciated) feedback on how these races are conducted. Now that I’m working with people pushing for a revolution in how the sport treats its hardest-working stars (the pro athletes, duh), their passion is rubbing off on me, too.
the three things I am passionate about: travel, writing, sport
Last week I was able to conduct an interview that will soon be published as a cover story. The whole mini-project brought together everything I am passionate about at this point and I just love being able to tell people’s stories.
My own racing has taken a back seat to my work, but in a way the past year has shown me that I can be passionate about a sport and contribute to it without necessarily being on the pointy end of things. But you never know; if my body holds up and training goes well I might again be able to scale the heights of what I used to be able to do. SuBIT is only about eight weeks away and the thought of racing again both fascinates and terrifies me. I’m not done with this sport yet, because I love it.
no riding into the sunset just yet
