Simone Biles stunned the world this week by pulling out of the Olympics to concentrate on her mental health. Twitter blew up with one side applauding her “bravery” to put her mental health first, and the other side saying that she let down her country and team and that there is nothing brave in quitting.
Initially I was torn. I grew up watching Rocky movies and hearing that “It’s not about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.” In all the final fight scenes, Rocky takes the blows, then when he’s about to collapse, he digs deep, remembers all the training sessions, and staggers up and wins.
And this is exactly what Simone Biles did in the World Championships in 2018 when she fell twice and still went on to win gold. However, this time, she said it “wasn’t worth it” and “there’s more to life than gymnastics.”
This line resonated with me and has left me thinking maybe she’s right. In the non-sporting world, we often let our careers govern our lives and forget that there is more to life. Whenever we meet someone new, one of the first questions we ask is “so what do you do?” I once responded to this question by “I run” which then led to an awkward silence when the person asked my times and realised that I was more of an average plodder than a runner. But, I wasn’t in the mood for talking about my job that day and thought that speaking about running might prove more interesting.
Allowing our careers to define who we are is not a decision we make consciously; it creeps up on us. We usually just want to succeed and companies prey on this and take more and more from you and before you know it your career has become a lifestyle choice. I have also been victim to this. In my last job, I wanted a promotion so badly that I hid my pregnancy until I was legally obliged to admit that I was pregnant 15 weeks before my due date.
I wore XL clothes to work and looked like a 90s rapper for most of my pregnancy. I held papers in front my stomach when I needed to walk to meeting rooms, drank minimal amounts of water during the workday to avoid running to the toilet every two minutes, and worked 10 to 12 hour days commuting back and forth, and using up my vacation days for midwife appointments and scans so I wouldn’t have to let them know I was pregnant. Yes, my husband found this ludicrous and so did my close friends who I confided in, and I can see their point now, but back then there was no way I was going to risk that promotion that I worked hard for pass me by because I happened to be pregnant.
Now that I’ve given birth to Alba and since become a stay at home mum, I often wonder what it was all for. Only Hasani knows how many days I called from the office crying because I was exhausted, and hungry, and sick, and still had work to complete before I could commute home during rush hour when the downside of wearing huge clothes to hide your pregnancy is that no one gives you a seat and you’re squashed and nauseous.
I wish I had Simone Biles’ work ethic then to say, “you know what, my wellbeing is worth more than this damn promotion.” But alas, we don’t think like that do we? We need to win, win, win at all costs and we forget that wise Trini saying that “pressure does buss pipe.” (Although in a perfect world I would feel confident that I would still be offered that promotion I worked hard for despite being pregnant.) But, if Simone Biles can find more to life than gymnastics, then we plebs can surely find more to life than our careers.
Picture is me writing this article because I think all the pictures of Simone Biles are copyrighted.