KDB Systems

I just got back from Whistler where I picked up my Olympic vol­un­teer accred­i­ta­tion and uni­form. I’m jazzed about the chance to work at the Ski-jumping and Nordic Com­bined events. I’m work­ing on the cal­cu­la­tions crew. It will be a hec­tic, fun filled Feb­ru­ary. That’s not really what this post is about though. Dur­ing the drive home, about forty-five min­utes, I was reflect­ing on my Olympic jour­ney and the Olympics in gen­eral. Some peo­ple in Van­cou­ver and the Sea to Sky Cor­ri­dor are neg­a­tive about the Olympics. There is a fair amount of neg­a­tive press. There are organ­ised protest groups, some advo­cat­ing vio­lence. Why are some peo­ple so excited and enthu­si­as­tic while oth­ers are so against the Olympics? If we dis­count the vio­lent fringe I think the major­ity of the peo­ple neg­a­tive about the Olympics fit a very dif­fer­ent per­son­al­ity pro­file from the excited sup­port­ers. My whole life I’ve looked for new expe­ri­ences. I thrive on learn­ing new skills and expe­ri­enc­ing new things. I tend to get bored with some­thing once I’ve had the expe­ri­ence. I go look­ing for some­thing new. When I was younger I had very rest­less feet, always want­ing to see some­where I hadn’t been before. As soon as it was announced that Van­cou­ver got the 2010 win­ter Olympics I started my Olympic jour­ney. I vol­un­teered for events at the Whistler Olympic Park before you could vol­un­teer for the Olympics. I rev­elled in learn­ing new skills and about a sport I knew noth­ing about. I was a Pre-Olympic vol­un­teer, inter­view­ing Olympic vol­un­teers. I immersed myself in the Olympics and the expe­ri­ence of vol­un­teer­ing. I think many of the peo­ple who wish the Olympics would just go away are the oppo­site to me. They thrive on con­ti­nu­ity and know­ing what’s going to hap­pen before it hap­pens. I’m not say­ing one is bet­ter than the other. They are dif­fer­ent out­looks on life, that’s all. I was some­what angry when I talked to peo­ple who were going away for the Olympics, or upset because they would be incon­ve­nienced by them. How could they even think of miss­ing some­thing this big right in their back yard? It’s only three weeks of incon­ve­nience out of a life­time. After think­ing this through I’m no longer angry. How can you be angry just because some­one is dif­fer­ent from you? There are many other rea­sons that peo­ple may be excited or angry about the Olympics. Most of the peo­ple I’ve talked to per­son­ally how­ever fit into one of my cat­e­gories. They’re either excited and can’t wait or they just want it to be over. I think for most of us it is more about our out­look on life rather than the Olympics specif­i­cally. I’d be just as excited about a world’s fair or any other major event in my back yard. Oth­ers would be just as neg­a­tive about those same events. Both view­points are valid. I can live with that.