When medal mania strikes

What turns a healthy motivation to excel into a toxic desperation to achieve?

Paul Valler

Paul Valler is an executive coach and mentor. He is a former chair of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

A defeat fencer, withour a mask, turns angrily and roars.

Sandro Bazadze loses and loses it.

The brilliance and joy of medalists in the Paris Olympics is incredible to see. Their discipline and sacrifices in training pay off in mesmerising displays of excellence and moments of pure elation. Yet for there to be winners, there also must be losers, and there have been revealing moments of crushing disappointment which are never nice to see. Sadly, Sandro Bazadze, world number one in fencing, could well go down in Olympic history as ‘the distraught loser who lost it’ in a furious rant at the referee as he was eliminated in the last 16 of the men’s sabre. What is it that makes some people explode like that? What is it that changes a healthy motivation to excel into a toxic desperation to achieve? What is it that changes a human being who is fully alive into an anxious person, so driven to succeed that they cannot bear to fail?

That is likely why Bazadze erupted. When he was denied success, he was denied who he thought he was.

Few of us will achieve Olympic greatness, or the media recognition that redefines an athlete’s profile by forever linking their name to their achievement. But we all have an inner tendency to believe that our value is based on what we can achieve. We live in a culture that continually sends us the message that approval and worth depend on your results. Many of us believe it, and then fall for a life of continuous intensity - a ‘cycle of grief’ as we fiercely strive for results, but mourn the loss of our inner peace. And this cultural message of acceptance through achievement becomes really toxic when we begin to believe the lie that our identity is based on our performance. That is likely why Bazadze erupted. When he was denied success, he was denied who he thought he was. “The referees have killed me”, he exclaimed.

It’s not just athletes who are at risk from this. Think about how our education system sends the same message about grades. Thousands of teenagers suffer anxiety and mental illness as they face exams, because they believe their self-worth depends on their marks. As GCSE results are published this month, thousands will be congratulated, but some will become depressed from failure.

I know many workplaces where ‘performance management’ has become so oppressive that it leads to drivenness, perfectionism and burnout. Even retirees can feel driven to complete their ‘bucket list’ before they die or become infirm. So, people in all walks of life easily become addicted to the treadmill of ‘performance-based living’ and feel tired, trapped and troubled. Labouring under the false belief that self-respect depends on achievement. If you believe that, you cannot fail or even be ill without feeling deficient.

There is a deep peace in that. A freedom and resilience that makes it possible to compete without fear of failure.

There is a better way. We can choose to renounce that pernicious lie of a performance identity and affirm the deep truth that our real identity and significance is found in who we are as God’s much-loved children. We can anchor our emotions in the security of that true identity. If Bazadze had really understood and internalised this, he would still have been disappointed with the judges decision, but not destroyed by it.

It is possible to decide to face up to the mania for results and our culture of continuous intensity. That is what Sabbath is about – an act of resistance against a world dominated by the need for success. God knows we need a break, not only to rest, but to recentre our hearts and minds on the truth. We are loved unconditionally and don’t need to strive to achieve in order to be accepted and significant to God. There is a deep peace in that. A freedom and resilience that makes it possible to compete without fear of failure. In the Bible, the word excellence is never applied to achievement, only to character, and the most excellent way is defined as love. The Christian worldview celebrates great performance, but avoids making an idol of it, because that leads to a destructive obsession and to insecurity.

Being secure in God is not about avoiding competition or pressure. It is learning to pursue outstanding attainment free from any sense of our identity being stolen by our grades, or jobs, or whether other people approve of us or award us medals. Top quality performance is superb and we should give our best with all our heart whatever we do. But God is a God of grace, who loves, accepts and dignifies everyone unconditionally, including those who didn’t even qualify for the Olympics, just as much as those who were on the rostrum.

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Film & TV

18 May 2024

5 min read

Théoden and breaking the spell

Bernard Hill’s most famous role sheds light on where humanity needs to be.

Theodore Brun

Theodore is author of the historical fiction series The Wanderer Chronicles.

A movie scene of a king and prince walking confidently.

Bernard Hill, middle, in The Lord of the Rings.

New Line Cinema.

Recently we saw the sad passing of Bernard Hill, one of the great British actors of his generation, whose career enjoyed many high points. Hill came to prominence, in Britain at least, in the 1980s with his role as an unemployed tarmac-layer in the BBC series Boys From the Blackstuff. Through the 1990s, he went on to star in a number of big budget Hollywood feature films, such as The Ghost and The Darkness, Titanic, and The Scorpion King. But his best-known role, the one which won him global recognition, was as King Théoden in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

In both Tolkien’s book and Jackson’s adaptation, the character of King Théoden plays a pivotal role in making a stand against the forces of evil advancing under the banners of first the wizard Saruman the White in The Two Towers, and then the Dark Lord Sauron himself in The Return of the King, the trilogy’s climax.

Théoden’s character arc is as heroic as any in Tolkien’s epic. But perhaps the most memorable moment within it comes when he is first introduced. Gandalf comes to Théoden’s hall of Edoras to rally support against Saruman’s rampaging armies of orcs. But instead of a redoubtable king and ally in the fight against their common enemy, he finds a weak man buckled under the weight of old age and infirmity, cowed by fear and indecision, and enthralled to the counsel of Grima Wormtongue - whom Gandalf reveals to be an agent of Saruman.

In Jackson’s version, Gandalf ‘delivers’ Théoden from his enthrallment, in effect breaking the spell of inertia and inaction which Saruman, through his minion Wormtongue, has cast over him. Théoden awakes from his bondage, is physically rejuvenated, and is now able to rise and take his proper place in the battleline against Sauron’s evil power. In Tolkien’s version, Théoden has more agency. He chooses, at last, to throw off the counsel of Wormtongue and cling to the slim thread of hope which Gandalf represents, however desperate it may seem.

It is a powerful image, and one from which we can and must learn today.

Our ears are open to so many voices through both mainstream and social media that it becomes a matter of extreme importance to be able to discern who is Gandalf and who is Grima Wormtongue?

Few would deny that recent times have revealed new and determined manifestations of evil in our culture and our world. And yet, both inside and outside the church, these latter years have also been characterised by a feeling of helplessness and inaction in the face of such evil. It’s common to hear both men and women complain that they feel unable to speak up in opposition to what they perceive as wrong. They have been silenced. Either those who dare to speak up find themselves cancelled. Or else those who don't self-censor, keeping their mouths shut and their heads well below the parapet. Like Théoden, they lock themselves away in their hall. In this latter case, the battle is ceded without ever having drawn a sword.

As the famous Edmund Burke quote goes: ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ Much of the church, some might dare to say most of it, resides in this place of cowed inaction. Enthralled and confused by the Wormtongue whisperings of the media as mouthpieces for agendas diametrically opposed to the good, we have willingly subjected ourselves to this spell. And the consequence? Like the Westfold of Rohan, the land is burning.

It is not controversial to say anyone who cares about our culture and its future needs to awaken from their slumber. Needs to cast off - or else have cast out - the gag of silence. But what is more troubling perhaps is that, even having done that, we cannot agree on what is evil and what is good.

In the Bible, the devil is portrayed as often masquerading as an angel of light. And it warns against the descent of some cultures into a state of such moral confusion that God’s ordinances are inverted: good is called evil, and evil is called good.

So how are we to navigate our way through this mire of uncertainty? Warnings against misinformation and disinformation abound. And yet, those in positions of power who proclaim them may equally be charged with propagating untruths and dissembling realities, all for the sake of shoring up their own power structures.

All this is to say - our ears are open to so many voices through both mainstream and social media that it becomes a matter of extreme importance to be able to discern who is Gandalf and who is Grima Wormtongue?

Tolkien’s choice of the name Grima Wormtongue is significant. ‘Grima’ derives from the Old Norse word, grímr which means ‘mask’. ‘Worm’ similarly derives from another Old Norse word: ormr which means ‘snake’ or ‘serpent’.

As such, it throws us right back into the Garden of Eden and the honeyed words of the serpent which led humanity into such disaster, offering some purported good up front, while concealing the calamity (and shame) which comes hard on its heels. If we are to stand up and contest the modern manifestations of evil, we must be able to recognise the side of the field of battle on which to take our stand.

Who is Gandalf? In Tolkien’s world, though he hated the idea of his work being interpreted as allegory, Gandalf does represent the Christ figure. And Sauron in turn suggests the Anti-Christ - a nebulous figure arising from scripture, poorly understood at the best of times. But somehow the fountainhead from which, humanity is told, all evil must flow.

But if humanity thinks of Christ on the side of good, and Christ as the most human of us all, perhaps this provides a yardstick by which we can discern the lines of battle.

Is it human or anti-human to stand up for life at its most vulnerable? Is it human or anti-human to stand up for the family unit? Is it human or anti-human to honour and celebrate each and every Imago Dei as they were created to be? Is it human or anti-human to safeguard a parent’s right to speak good into their children’s life? Is it human or anti-human to preserve the innocence of our young? Is it human or anti-human to challenge systems of power which enable all kinds of exploitation and other self-evident evils?

First we must awaken. Then we must choose our side. And finally, like Théoden, we must ride to the fight.

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