Last week, an exchange between a goalie and a fellow teammate, post a victorious game, caught my eye and it got me thinking about how important it is to have cheerleaders in our life and to cheer on for others.
Maple Leaf’s goalie Jack Campbell made 32 saves and set a franchise-record of 10th straight victory after Toronto defeated the Montreal Canadiens. In a post-victory exchange between Mitch Marner and Campbell, Marner can be seen joyously counting off all 10 straight wins to Campbell. This moment prompted Campbell to express how Marner wasn’t just being a teammate but “he was being a true, great friend.”
That’s what it is about, to being a true, great friend, a perfect cheerleader.
We all need people in our life who will support our work. They are the people who will share your work with their world, prompt people to come to your “exhibition” of artwork that is hanging in some dark, isolated cafe, they will be the ones promoting you, pumping you up and making you believe in yourself. For some, these cheerleaders are in the form of their family, for others it is friends and for even others, it is the several strangers reaching out through social media, reassuring them of all the good they are doing.
Locally, the community members here are constantly doing some volunteer work, raising money, doing good for others and those on the sidelines are not just watching, but cheering them on, encouraging them, talking about them. And that itself is so inspiring. Much too often, the green monster of jealousy could rare its head ugly head but be it work being done by the literacy groups, the food centres, the bottle depots or the libraries, I have witnessed several community members becoming cheerleaders for these doers of good.
In a world that has so much hatred and negativity, that has violence and those recovering from the scars of the past, being a cheerleader for others can bring some joy not only to you but will just add to the joy all around us. Just like that video of Marner and Campbell. That video, that simple exchange and display of friendship and pure joy was shared more than 1,000 times from the Toronto Maple Leafs’ social media page alone.
We still have those few who always have something negative to say about others or always want to bring down others, and to those I continue to say — If you have nothing good to say, just don’t say anything.
So let’s all start cheering on others’, let’s all start making things about the “we” instead of just “me”.