* GO UNDER DOG GO

What is it about an underdog that gets us so emotional? What makes us stand up and cheer and yell? What is it that moves us inside when we see someone who is not supposed to succeed, succeed. Is it the simple fact that we ourselves are underdogs? Not just you and me but everyone. Could it be that we simply want to share in harmony with someone who is capitalizing on a moment and drawing everyone into their triumph? In my mind it has much to do with how we see ourselves and our own challenges in the face of adversity.

Everyone knows the battered feeling of failure, The idea that we can't win against such terrible odds. Terrible odds you ask? Well life in general, it seems more so then ever that we are against it alone. That we are in an arena filled with onlookers who pass judgment on our performance, our wins and losses, our failures and successes. Currently the queen of underdogs is Susan Boyle. The 47 year old woman from England who has been watched 50 million (yes that was 50 million) times on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxPZh4AnWyk. As she walked out on stage the moment was seemingly ripe for a collapse of epic proportion. In a certain sense i think many who were watching in the audience and at home were actually hoping for some type of meltdown or hysterics. What they got instead was pure delight.

That is what got me to thinking about the similarity to everyday life underdogs and the ones who take a national stage. Almost everyone saw only the opportunity for failure from this woman as she arrived on stage. She was dressed so-so, she was not by any means attractive, she had, ''drole'' mannerisms and she spoke kind of funny. All of these things together built a model that from some perspective is one we believe will fail, will not stand out and will certainly not awe us. This simple stereotype is cast every day in every situation, You see it at work, in the stores, in schools, on sport fields and just about anywhere where 3 people can come into contact and 2 of the three can begin stereotyping the third. When Susan Boyle began to sing and the very fist notes escaped her mouth you sensed immediate turn around from the audience. They were dumb founded. The stereotype didn't apply. This woman was special, she was supposed to fail and now look, my God what is she doing, she is an underdog.We feel uplifted, we feel warm inside, we feel tears develope in our eyes, we feel like a part of their success, we want to see them win..win and take it all. We see the true face of triumph, the years of despair that disappear in one moment of pure life, pure emotion. We watch their life change before our eyes and what we see in that moment is we see ourselves...the true us.

So what is it that makes us so immediately change our tune so fast when we actually believe we are witnessing the rise of an underdog. Is it because we truly do want to see people do well, we want to see them win. Is it because we know what it is to lose, to be stereotyped, to be destined and categorized for failure. I think its all of the above but i think it is more. I think it is because we all know that at any given time we can fail and that that failure be it large or small can then be tagged to us and we can become stigmatized by it. Perhaps it is because we know that no matter how much of a winner we might be at any given time, or how successful we are, or how many wins we have under our belt that eventually we could so quickly become the complete opposite. I also believe we root for the underdog from a very basic instinct, the instinct that if it was us we would want everyone to root for us also. That those who thought for sure we would fail would immediately join in the applause for success.

The fundamental problem however is not the whole notion of the underdog. It is the issue of categorizing and stereotyping people to the point where eventually all that negative becomes a self fulfilling prophecy for the person being stereotyped. Sounds weird no? Well actually its a very simple fact. Take a child, tell them they can't, tell them they will never, tell them not good enough, tell them stop trying. Eventually over time you have created a person who will end up being one of those people who we might, just might, eventually see up on a stage and may turn our whole notion of what we know completely on its head.

Go Underdog Go.