Prompt 3: Hold up is an example of "opportunism" - taking advantage of circumstances. Sometimes people don't act opportunistically, even when they have the chance. We talked about being a "good citizen" and that might be one reason. Another is that opportunistic behavior can be unethical. Still another is that people are patient and "good things come out to those who wait." Give an example of where you or somebody you know didn't act opportunistically though they had the chance. Then speculate as to why. Also consider whether these various explanations amount to the same thing, or if they are different.
Opportunities arise around us almost every day, and even
without much notice we make decisions that impact us in some way or another.
For example, I am currently on an Indian competitive dance team here at the
university. Being captain of the team and working with 16 other individuals,
their schedules and their frustrations, is one of the hardest things I have to
work with. Just last week, I ran into an issue where one of the girls on our
team wanted to continue to practice and dance for our upcoming competition even
on her sprained ankle. She did not want to give the spot to our alternate
dancer. Her reasoning for this was that she not only made the team after
competitive try-outs, but secondly spent her entire first semester devoting 15
hours a week to perfect a seven minute dance for this semester. She had worked
so hard and she didn’t want to let the team down and not compete. This was an
opportunity she had; to get better and dance at later competitions or to continue
dancing now and risk the possibility of her injuring herself even worse.
From a captains perspective I would have wanted her to sit
out as we could easily have had the alternate dance on her behalf for this
upcoming competition and have her compete at later competitions. However, this
being one of the nations most recognized raas competitions, she only insisted
that she dance. Relating this back to what we looked at in class, this decision of hers to continue to dance was
very unethical to herself as she would only be putting herself in more danger.
However as mentioned in the prompt, “good things come to those who wait,” I
think that if she decided to wait her ankle would have gotten better and she
would be ready in a month. Unfortunately, her willingness and determination to
continue dancing caused her a sprained ankle and now a torn muscle in her
calve.
It is so hard for individuals to really gage the outcome of
ones actions in the moment. That is why to her at the time it seemed that
dancing would make her a better team member. However, later she realized that
the right thing to do was probably sit this one out. Now having to attend
weekly therapy she also has to take time out for appointments. It turns out
that her one opportunistic decision turned into something that she now has to
commit additional time for. In this situation there were clearly two sides. One
which came from the dedication one has to this team, and the other which comes
from the practicality of the situation. I definitely think that the two
explanations amount to different outcomes but overall had the same motive of
simply being a good team member.
I have the impression reading this that the word "opportunism" is causing some confusion. It does not mean having the opportunity to do something. It means taking advantage of a situation in ways others would view unethical. Having a real injury is ordinarily viewed as a restriction of opportunities. Normal responses to injury, can't be opportunistic, by definition. If there was some potential gain in performing at the competition, because of who would be in the audience, then performing in spite of the injury might very well be rational. Is it unfair to for the student to demand to perform when she is hurt? I don't know. But it does seem she shouldn't perform from what you've indicated. I wonder if that's how the other students on the team perceived it.
ReplyDeleteI know from experience that playing a competitive sport through an injury can potentially hurt your team. People get injured in competitive sports all of the time, the main issue when it comes to sport injuries is time off. How much time will the player miss? For a stubborn person like me, I never want to miss any time, and therefore I mask my injuries and continue to play. Is that selfish? It definitely can be. If my injury is bad enough that I am affecting my team negatively then I should sit out and let someone else play. If the girl on your dance team was negatively affecting your team's togetherness because of her injury, then she should have given up her spot to the alternate. I can see why she would mask the injury and play it off as a minor injury, because I am sure that she has worked hard all year, and has really put a lot of effort and time into the dance team. The girl on your team took advantage of her spot on the team by deciding to push through her injury which in turn, could have negatively affected the overall effectiveness of your routine. I am sure most of your teammates viewed her decision as unethical because she was being a selfish teammate (if she was hurting the team).
ReplyDeleteI also played years of competitive sports and highly encouraged high performing teammates to continue to play even with a injury. This is in part because a star player that can play when hurt is a much better than a bench player that only see's game time action once in a while. Personally since this competitive sport of dancing is very subjective and ever little move is evaluated I would assume it would be beneficial to the team for her to sit out. However, if it is a sport such as football and your quarterback has a sprained ankle I would rather see him push through the pain since it is a different scoring and playing system.
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