All in.

I love watching the Olympics. All that skill, dedication, exhilaration...seemingly normal people doing extraordinary things. But it's the "seemingly" part of the athletes that tends to get overlooked.

These young people dedicate every waking moment to the sport they love, for better or for worse, like when your sport involves hurling yourself down an icy shute while balancing precariously on a toboggan.

I could never be an Olympic athlete. Yes, I own a mirror and can plainly see that my lack of muscle definition would probably ban me from being a spectator let alone a competitor. But I couldn't forsake all other things in my life in the pursuit of one thing. I don't find that healthy. So do I find it admirable?

Life is about hope. About chances. About redemption. These are common themes throughout the Olympic stories as well. Bode Miller blows his chances at Torino, and seeks redemption at the Vancouver Olympics. That means Bode Miller has dedicated the past four years, FOUR YEARS, striving mindfully (mindlessly?) toward a state that will be achieved, or denied, in thirty seconds. Thirty seconds. Not to be a complete skeptic, but his achievement or denial of redemption/his dream might be forgotten by the majority of the public in the ensuing thirty seconds.

So what makes "it" worth it? I really want to know. I want to know what the elusive "it" is that will make me lay my head on my pillow each night and say, "I did good."