Gymnast’s tweet captured profound truth: ‘I’m more than my accomplishments’
Gymnast’s tweet captured profound truth: ‘I’m more than my accomplishments’
‘Love & support’ gave her freedom to see beyond her difficulties
As amazing as gold-medal-winning gymnast Simone Biles has been this week, I am unable to watch her perform without remembering what she wrote on Twitter in 2021, shortly after she curtailed her competition at the Tokyo Olympics. They are words that have inspired me during the last three years as I contemplate how to treat others:
the outpouring love & support I’ve received has made me realize I’m more than my accomplishments and gymnastics which I never truly believed before. 🤍
Simone Biles, one of the world’s greatest athletes ever, in any sport. Simone Biles, the most celebrated of Olympians. Simone Biles, a role model for countless young gymnasts worldwide. Simone Biles, the author of a book that reached the top spot on the New York Times bestseller list in the young adult category. Simone Biles, a one-time reality-TV competitor. Simone Biles, winner of coveted award after coveted award.
And yet she did not know of the value she had simply for being Simone Biles.
Take away the awards, the honors, the victories, and in her mind there was nothing left to celebrate.
Sadly, many agreed with that assessment. Detractors called her a traitor, and worse, as her partial withdrawal from competition at Tokyo meant that the U.S. team would not get a gold medal. Some criticized her for filling a spot on the team that might instead gone to someone who was willing to perform. Others saw her as cowardly, while others questioned whether her fears were even real. Others simply called her a quitter, or someone who wanted to be at the center of a pity party.
And they were all wrong.
The mental transformation that Biles tweeted about after her highly visible “failure” should be a lesson to all of us. To the people who loved her most, Biles wasn’t just the recipient of medal after medal. She had value that transcended her accomplishments. Do what’s best for you, her true friends told her. We love you for being you.
And many of her fans told her the same things: “24 karat girl!! You are worthy!!” wrote one fan in response to Biles’s tweet.
And another: “You are a true champion, Simone. And not because of your twistyflippysplits and twirls. 💫”
And still another: “You are amazing beyond any achievements. You are LOVED for you and you alone.”
They’re the ones who are right.
We live in a world that values achievement. In itself there’s nothing wrong with that; nearly all the great material things we have today we have because of others’ work and accomplishment.
But we are more than our achievements.
The writer of Genesis may have expressed this most profoundly when he wrote that God created humankind in the very image of God.1 A psalmist later used the imagery of God knitting him in his mother’s womb, then concluded: “How difficult it is for me to fathom your thoughts about me, O God! How vast is their sum total.”2 The psalmist saw that he was of unfathomable value, simply because of how he came to be.
There’s a perspective here that is recognized even in the secular terms of humanistic psychology, which has as its first principle: “Human beings, as human, supersede the sum of their parts. They cannot be reduced to components.”3
Where humankind fails, it is most often because we don’t recognize in others that divinity, that transcendence, that all of us share. And because we don’t see it in others, we don’t always see it in ourselves, especially in times where we fall short.
This week, I can join Simone Biles in celebrating the remarkable comeback that she has had. But in the end, it is her profound observation that she made in response to love and support that will provide me with the most meaning as my memories of the Olympics fade.
Genesis 1:26.
Psalm 139:17 (NET Bible).