A sports organization recently decided to give one of their awards to a former male Olympic champion who recently completed a sex change to become a woman. The award was for courage. Immediately there was feedback that others were more deserving of the reward. One person mentioned as more deserving was a female college basketball player who died in the past few months after achieving her goal of playing college basketball.
Of course just because one organization decides to "honor" one person does not make that organization correct. Organizations give out rewards/awards for various reasons. Some may be self serving reasons and some reasons may be to just make a point. Regardless of the award, each of us does not have to accept that award as being the ultimate truth. Just because a "fact" is put in front of our face does not mean we have to accept it. We all need to decide what is our truth and what do we individually believe.
We have been taught that people who get awards are those who deserve them or have earned them. But that is not always true. We've been taught to categorize many things in life. Excellence, most valuable, and yes "courage" are just a few of the things we categorized. We develop categories simply because we can and maybe because we are truly bored. We don't have enough to worry about so let's create some mundane award that legitimizes us as an organization or as an individual.
As with many things in life, we need to start ignoring those aspects of life that tend to deliver subjective labels on the human condition. Awards, contests, and results of games fall into that category. Celebrate whomever you want to celebrate. Reward/award anyone you feel is deserving. It doesn't require an organization to send someone or the family of someone a note or a token to reward them for something you value.
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