It was reported today that Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chad Johnson legally changed his name to a number. Though not nearly as bad as Prince changing his name to a graphic symbol twenty years ago, this is a great example of how one man is struggling with his identity as a man.
One of the Principles of Prosperity is that people are assets. Truly being an asset to society means first understanding who you are. You are not a number. You are not a symbol. You are a child of God, yes, a god yourself. And while the necessary and natural does not demand that you call yourself a word, it is still a reflection of what you think of yourself. If you think of yourself in a healthy way, I believe you would not draw attention to yourself by changing your name to a number or by desecrating your body in any degrading way. Instead you would draw attention to yourself by achieving greatness.
Chad Johnson is a talented individual, as is evidenced by the fact that he has maintained his status as a professional football player and his many team and NFL records as a wide receiver. But he should allow his performance on the field draw that attention to him. That is where he shows he is the asset that he truly is, both on and off the field. Instead, his outlandish behavior, his changing his name to Ocho Cinco, has contributed to his coach no longer seeing him as a true asset but one who must be tolerated in order to hold a successful season. His coach called him “Ocho Psycho.” And his behavior has caused splinters in the team unity, as is also evidenced by his desire to be traded and the many threatenings to refuse to play if he is not traded.
It is a shame to see anyone’s talenst go to waste. But when a man’s self-esteem crashes so low that he wishes to be called a number, he is fulfilling T.S. Eliot’s utterance:
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
Hardly worthy of being a man. But Johnson, like Eliot, is wrong. He is a man, and he should start acting like it.
Filed under: FreeCapitalism, God/Religion, Personal Excellence | Tagged: principles of prosperity, religion, self esteem, sports
