When I first heard that Michelle Kwan was officially withdrawing from the Olympic games, like most people I know, I was saddened by the news. I’m not going to even pretend like I understand what she’s feeling, but after learning more about her life and career, I really feel I’ve been engrained with a profound lesson from her story:

Everybody’s got dreams. They motivate us to try harder and inspire us to think bigger. Most people describe their dream in terms of a position or an award. Win a Super Bowl. Be CEO. Marry a supermodel. Be filthy rich. But if you think that you’ll only be happy if you achieve that dream, then you’re setting yourself up for major disappointment in the future. The reality is, most of us will not ever achieve our dreams. Let’s face it. There’s only a couple dozen Super Bowl rings given out every year, only 1 CEO per company and only 1 gold medal (per sport) every 4 years. Whether we fail to reach our dreams because of our own doing or because of factors beyond our control, the fact is that we have a very, very slim chance. It doesn’t have much to do with whether we’re worthy of it, it’s basically just probability.

Why do we place so much importance on these dreams? I think it’s because we associate dreams with immense happiness. Well, does your life so far support this association? Have you ever dreamt of something, got it, and lived an immensely happy life ever since. Probably not. My guess is that once the novelty wore off, you pretty much returned to the same emotional state you were before. Studies have shown repeatedly that lottery winners are not any happier and victims of serious, life-altering injuries are no sadder than the average person. It’s a really difficult (and counterintuitive) thing to accept , but the truth is that even if your dream does come true, it’s not going to bring you the immense happiness you expect. It really won’t change you much at all.

But before you get all depressed, let me talk about the lesson that I learned from Michelle. She said at the press conference:

I’ve learned that it’s not about the gold. It’s about the spirit of it and about the sport itself. I have no regrets, I tried my hardest and if I don’t win the gold, it’s okay. I’ve had a great career. I’ve been very lucky. This is a sport. It’s beautiful.

At first, when I heard that I was like “yeah right”. But, as I read more about her story, I started to realize that she was being absolutely honest. There is simply no other way to explain her die-hard dedication to her skating even after two heart-wrenching disappointments in the ‘98 and ‘02 Olympics. What totally blew me away was I watched an A&E Biography on her, where in an interview, she said she actually started to cry during her ‘02 Olympics Exhibition skating routine because she was just overwhelmed with the love and perfectness of what she was doing on the rink. Some say that this was one of her most memorable performances ever. Now keep in mind that just the night before this, she had made a small error which caused her dream for Olympic gold to be once again unfulfilled. I can’t even imagine how I would have handled myself in such a situation. Michelle has won more championships than any other skater ever has or (probably) will, yet ultimately it’s the act of skating itself that brings her immense happiness. That’s why she has continued to push (and dominate) in what has been a career of extreme peaks and valleys.

Everyone’s life will have peaks and valleys as well. Nobody knows what the future holds in each of our lives. The only thing we really know is what it is we love doing. So, I encourage you to take a step back and reflect about what it is you truly love doing. If you can figure it out, make a promise to yourself to work your ass off so that if you’re lucky, you will be able to spend as many of your waking hours doing that thing you love. Just like Michelle, pursuing what you love will bring peaks and valleys, but when your time is up, you won’t have any regrets because there’s nothing else you would have rather been doing in your precious time here on this planet. What more than that can you honestly ask from life?

UPDATE:
Some cool videos of her on YouTube.
A&E Biography from 2004
2002 Olympic Exhibition routine (I seriously do understand how someone musters up the strength to pull this off after what happened the night before)