Too much confrontation

Ooopsie, I think I offended a few people last night.

If you know me, you know I like to think things through so that I am satisfied with my position on a topic. To feel comfortable about a position I’ll often argue the opposite with someone so that they can basically convince me of the position I actually hold.

So last night we are at dinner with friends and ofcourse everyone is talking Olympics (yawn).

And the topic of that ‘motorcycle accident’ (yeah right) and drugs comes up.

Now, I guess I’m against drugs in sport (actually I don’t think I care) but everyone seems to take it as a given that performance enhancing drugs are wrong. So I want to be sure that I agree drugs are wrong, and I launch into my usual method of arguing the opposite, ie in this case I argue strongly that they should be allowed…

My reasoning goes like this:

You are talking about the elite of the world – people who train themselves endlessly and want to achieve the ultimate they can be.

They have a limited sporting lifespan (eg 10 years before they retire) due to the enormous stresses they put on their bodies and limbs.

They do everything they can to improve performance whether its diet, regimen, vitamins, massages, meditation, sports pyschology coaches, etc.

At this level, shaving 0.2 seconds off a 100m sprint is a big deal.

What if allowing them to take a performance enhancing drug allowed them to do this? Imagine the achievement of breaking 9 seconds on a 100m sprint say. Let all the atheletes take the drugs, make it cheap to purchase for all, and give them education on how to take them safely.

Why not? What’s the problem?

Why hold back atheletes from being the best they can physically be?



Anyway you get the gist.

Ofcourse everyone disagreed with me. Great. But now convince me I’m wrong. Give me a good argument. That’s all I want.

And here’s where I started getting confrontational. I was getting frustrated that no one would argue logically. Don’t give me the ‘it’s not a level playing field’ line or the ‘it puts a shadow over sport’ line. Rather convince me I’m wrong. And I’m sorry to say I was a bit rude to a few people.



Here’s the lesson:

Craig, you don’t have to be convinced on an issue. Having a relaxing dinner with friends is much more important that getting confrontational with them just because they can’t argue how you want them too.

Sadly there are probably a few people who think of me as the rude bastard who is pro drugs in sport. Serves me right.