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 January 2007 |
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January 2007 |
 When Kerri Strug was a young girl she had a big dream. She wanted to go to the
Olympics and become an all-around champion like Mary Lou Retton. At the age of
13, she made the huge decision to move away from home, from Arizona to Texas, to
work with the famous gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi. She worked hard and the move
put her dreams within reach.Eventually at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Strug was coming close to living her dream of becoming an all-around champion. Before she could qualify for that part of the competition, however, Strug participated in the team competition as a vaulter. On her first attempt, the 18-year-old athlete fell, injuring her ankle. Despite her painful injury the competition was not yet over for Strug. On her second attempt, she vaulted beautifully and managed to stick the landing before collapsing in pain. As a consequence of her performance, Strug qualified for the all-around competition, but due to her injury she was unable to compete. Now Strug says that while she was disappointed she could not compete in the all-around, she realizes that by helping her team win she had achieved something she didn’t even know was possible when she arrived at the competition. Life, she says, has taught her that it’s important to look at situations from many angles and it’s important to be open to possibilities. Additionally, says Strug, it’s critical to have some fun and enjoy your success along the way. Are you stuck on a problem you just can’t solve? Do you feel that no matter how you look at it you just can’t come up with the answer? If so, you may feel the need to go over everything you know about the situation, even though you have already done this to the point of exhaustion. A better idea might be to scrap what you know and start over again. Try to erase what you know and get rid of any assumptions that could be blocking your success. As an example, if you watch detective shows on television inevitably you will come across one where the detective sits down to go over the facts. He usually does not uncover a new fact, but discovers instead that his “knowledge” was the problem all along. When you find yourself stuck in this way, heed the words of Daniel J. Boorstin: “The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance. It is the illusion of knowledge.” Did you know that tomatoes were once known as love apples? So were tomatoes once considered an aphrodisiac? According to the Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, it’s a possibility, but if it ever was, the idea probably arose from an etymological accident. Tomatoes originally grew in South America and were imported to Spain not long after Columbus discovered the New World. From there the plants traveled to Morocco and eventually were shipped and grown in Italy. In Italy the fruit was given the name pomo dei Moro, meaning apple of the Moors. Then, apparently a Frenchman in a romantic mood made a mistake in translation calling the tomatoes pomme d’amour, meaning love apples. |
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