My parents came to visit me during the Olympics, and we spent several evenings watching the events. I’m not good at waiting for results to come in, so I made sure we were watching recordings from earlier in the day—ones that featured Americans doing well or the ends of the ice-skating events my parents liked.
(I never just sit down and watch whatever happens to be on; it’s 2026.)
One night, we were watching the Men’s Big Air Freestyle Skiing final. The participants were performing a 2160-degree twist (meaning they spun around six times). I said to the people gathered in my living room, “I doubt I could spin around six times on my feet.”
So I got up and went to a spot in the room where, if I fell, I wouldn’t get hurt. My wife counted my rotations as I went round and round. At four, I started to feel weird, but I kept going. When I got to six, I stopped. I could hardly stand. I staggered to the couch and lay down. Ten minutes later, I was able to sit up.
My head hurt until I woke up 11 hours later.
To be fair, I have a condition that prevents me from handling sudden movement. I can’t ride a roller coaster without getting dizzy. I can’t stand up quickly without getting lightheaded.
After watching the American skier take silver, we switched to a recording of women’s ice skating. They performed tricks that involved spinning countless times. As I sat there watching them—still dealing with the headache from my earlier spinning—I thought to myself, there has to be something I can do that they can’t. I came up with several ideas. I won’t list them, because I don’t know these individuals and could be wrong. Maybe they can do everything I can do, plus spin.
The announcers kept talking about mental health and how important it is. I agree that mental health is important. But they took it too far. They made it seem like ice skating is the toughest thing for mental health. Eventually, I broke into a rant.
I said to the people in the room, “At work, we’re going through performance review season right now.” It isn’t easy to sit someone down and go over—judge—how they’re doing at work. It also isn’t easy to be the one receiving a review, or judgment. I’ve worked in Human Resources long enough to know that a performance review should never be a surprise. That doesn’t mean it’s any easier to be part of one
Life is tough. We should never assume we have the toughest.
At the same time, we should all respect each other enough to understand that each of us offers a unique part to the world we live in. What is possible for one of us might be impossible for somebody else.
Thankfully, we have each other to help us make it through life, no matter how fast we seem to be spinning around.
