What is it like to be famous...
What is it like to have people want to eat everything you eat...
So many times, I am caught up in these conversations trashing superstar athletes or musicians, finding myself secretly balancing between envy and disgust.
Why do I want what they have, yet, say I don't?
I am usually on the side of trashing athletes for not taking their jobs seriously enough and not working for their pay. Just living as over-sized kids still playing games with their professional and personal lives.
Me, of all people, criticizing someones work ethic...
Today I read an article interviewing Kobe.
(Kobe Bryant for those born yesterday.)
The interviewer was trying to get a rise out of Kobe inciting him with remarks Michael Jordan recently said. It went something like this...
Reporter: Are you upset that Michael Jordan said you were only in the top 10 best to play in the NBA?
Now after this question I was instantly turned off because I have been so burnt out on questions similar invoking a debate on who is the greatest basketball player of all time. That conversation always results in a heated debate, then ends with the conversation reveling in top plays from both. This interview was different, much to the reporters chagrin...
Kobe:“There have been a lot of great guards to play the game. For me to sit here and say, ‘He should have said top five,’ that’s disrespectful to the other guards that I’ve watched.”
He goes on in the interview to disarm the reporter and talk about how he hopes to be remembered as an athlete who did more with less. To be remembered as an athlete who wasn't supposed to be The Greatest, but turned into a great one.
This shook me awake from my cultural bias' and made me see him more as a person than an athlete. A person trying to live a humble life.
This is Kobe Bryant, the man millions envy, taking his job, well, like a job.
