For as much as we talk in our society about the importance of hard work and striving to achieve one's dreams, there is an unspoken truth, a hard and fast rule that we rarely acknowledge in athletics.
There is a ceiling.
No matter how hard you work, no matter how hard you train, no matter how much of your life you dedicate to your sport, there is a genetic limit to how fast, strong, and agile you can be. There is a limit to how well you can perform.
If you look at the personal histories of anyone who achieved greatness and renown in their sport you will find athletes who dedicated their lives to their chosen craft. They ate, slept, and lived their sports. Without that dedication they would not have been great.
But the truth is their competitors were just as dedicated. The athletes we remember like Michael Jordan, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Lance Armstrong were surrounded at all times by athletes we do not remember. They were competing against athletes who worked just as hard for just as long to be able to even compete against the greatest.
We evaluate and remember the people who became the best, but before they could become better than others, they first had to become the best that they could be. They had to kiss their own ceilings before they could become untouchable.
Many people are so far away from their ceilings they do not even know they exist. They have never striven for something, pushed themselves to the edge day after day in the hope of being a little bit better tomorrow. They have never pushed the law of diminishing returns to it's breaking point. They have never approached the the asymptotic limit.
A question for the masses: Have you ever touched your ceiling?
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