National pride and happiness in hosting events

Lawrence Ookeditse | Thursday May 29, 2014 11:13

 

Often, we endure collective misery. These ranges from news of the need to ration water to news of the Zebras losing at a shot to qualify for major tournaments to the lack of great entertainment, clean fun where people can go be euphoric out there. Largely, we go through the motions-from heartbreak to stress at work, each carrying their own burdens with very little outlet for such or at least very little to celebrate.

See, people are happy to have free education, a good number of services, peace and stability among other things but the utility of such then begins to diminish. Basically, if you've had something for long, much as it may be a good thing, you get used to having it around and it ceases being as useful or at least as satisfying as it used to be. Because its utility is diminishing, that thing stops being so effective at making you happy. You want a jeep, you buy the Jeep- you are very excited on the first couple of months but as time goes, it becomes just another Jeep to you, just a car. It is no longer a thing to be worshipped as you'd been doing.

Now, politicians, rulers must find a way to answer such things, to continuously satiate the collective perpetual lust for happiness. If unable to do so, they face revolt, general discontent though they may be providing for the basic needs of the people, they face national disgruntlement, unhappiness that at times is hard to explain and may lead to loss of power.

But politicians in some countries, ours included, do not seem to see the value of hosting major sport and entertainment events. They are seen as a waste of money-a waste of money because their true value is never really calculated. If you count the costs of hosting such games purely on the millions spent, you're actually failing to see the value in terms of indices such as happiness and the positive effects that such may actually bring.

I've seen this with the opening ceremony and other programs of the Gaborone 2014 Youth Games. For the first time since the Olympics, Batswana could be identified as one big united family vying for, praying for and working towards the same outcome of being successful hosts of this event. The opening ceremony was celebrated by all- political opponents all converged to celebrate a national success. The people were euphoric because they witnessed what is possible, realized that this country is also capable of putting together events of as huge a magnitude as any other out there. That sentiment of national pride, belief and positivity is priceless.

While we ought not to be a recklessly carnival nation, we at the same time ought to invest in hosting more of these. We should aim to host more international sporting and entertainment events for the many reasons out there but also for reasons of raising the national happiness index.

See, the Soviets understood it, the Nazis too, the Americans do and more than any other people in this continent, the South Africans understand it. Hosting events brings out the other side of things, makes people happy. For some time we forget a lot of our misery as we focus on being happy. And life should be about that too right? About us feeling happy, just being euphoric and having that thrill. It matters not if I'll have breakfast in the morning at times so long as i can have experience gushes of euphoria.

While at it, let's also invest in our talent. It has been the one major shortcoming- we are not competitive enough on the field. You still get the feel we could do more to groom our kids. The state of development is in shambles if we fail to compete at this level youth level, then it says to us that our future in competition lies in ruins unless we do something about it.