When you think about it, reality television reveals that life isn’t perfect, and many find high entertainment value in the imperfect lives and escapades of those who don’t mind letting others — millions of others — in on their travails.
If life was perfect, ice cream would clear arteries.
If life was perfect, there’d be no bad hair days.
If life was perfect, I would have known then what I know now.
If life was perfect, they’d bring Sex & The City back.
But as we all know, life isn’t perfect. Neither are any of the humans who live in it. But that’s not to say we have license to look the other way when we see that imperfection displayed. No, instead we can move toward perfection by standing up and righting the wrong or the inequity when we see it demonstrated.
Case in point: The other day an announcement came out about an organization-wide soccer tournament. U.S. company teams can enter and ultimately be selected to participate in what is termed the Prague Cup (it’s held in Prague, hence the title), and dozens of member countries send teams to Prague to compete. So far, so good.
Except the rules which were originally scribed in, you guessed it, Prague, excluded women. The thinking was simple; soccer is a male-dominated sport and that’s just the way it’s done in Europe. In trying to adopt the rules for our U.S. norms, the team of volunteers who were working to organize the U.S. contingent, reached a compromise with the international organizers — 60 percent of the team needs to be male. They thought that was a reasonable compromise and promotion for the tournament was marketed this way.
Now, in a perfect world, no one would have had to feel outrage that the tournament wasn’t gender-neutral. There’s no question about that. But given the imperfect world we live in, making the most of the imperfection by speaking up and standing up for what is equitable — yes, the tournament is now gender-neutral — is, at the end of the day, a move toward perfection. A move toward the day when happenings like this don’t provide fodder for a blog like this.
If life was perfect, what would it look like to you?
Cathy
By blogger Cathy Benko, Deloitte LLP
