Many years ago I gave a speech entitled "Imagine." The premise was basic: can we imagine a world without professional sports? Without useless competition?
The speech was inspired by watching a soccer game televised in England. The TV crew was showing how close two soccer stadiums were to each other. A fan could just walk from one stadium to the other. The two enormous concrete structures surrounded by humungous asphalt parking lots. All that money just to see 22 men compete. Imagine if all that space was used for other things: parks, museums, art, science. More cooperation and less competition.
Imagine if the world would spend more time learning instead of watching TV or going to arenas to witness the cruelty of players bashing each other?
Just this week, during the Monday Night Football game, the world watched a young man collapse during a "routine" tackle. Buffalo Bills Damar Hamlin, just 24, suffered cardiac arrest and was resuscitated on the field. He remains in critical condition.
Is it time to imagine a different reality? Can we eliminate competitive sports and instead turn our energy into more worthwhile endeavors? Can we imagine a world in which we teach our children how to collaborate and cooperate rather than constantly compete against others? Can we teach them to compete against themselves rather than others? What would the human race be like?
Imagine all that money going to worthy causes such as eliminating hunger and restoring our planet, really curing diseases such as cancer and diabetes, and improving every aspect of life, rather than burying issues in a sea of meaningless distractions.
Imagine that. Just imagine that.
