The phenomena land

One thing we – Brazilian - have inherited from Portugal is that we believe in saviors. The most famous Portuguese episode in that sense was the Sabastianism’s belief – e.g. a belief that Don Sebastian, a Portuguese king killed in combat, was expected to return and restore the glory of the old days. More often than not we Brazilians tend to follow the same behavior in several aspect of our everyday life. We tend to put all of our hopes in one person and forget all the hard work of hundreds or thousands of people that helped this person to achieve its goal. But is there any problem with that?

Yes, there is!

First, we end up setting unrealistic expectations of what one can do and, therefore, simplifying the reality and making wrong decisions. When Brazilians elected Lula they thought that the only thing they had to do was vote for him and everything would be alright. It never crossed their mind that they should had elected a base of sustentation in congress or they should had asked who was going to be part of his office. Several months later corruption scandals, incompetence and apathy have been the characteristics that define this administration. When you don’t vote in a plan, in ideas, in a team you vote in saviors and as Santa Claus they don’t exist.

Second, a lot of the time we tend to forget all the hard work that takes to accomplish something and to give all the glory to just one person or to place all our hope on then. Our sport is full of example where we become extremely dependent of our phenomena and forget all that it takes to accomplish a goal. Brazil’s basketball was for almost twenty year dependent on Oscar; once he was gone Brazil can’t even get to the Olympics games. On the other hand Argentina that at the same period did not base its basketball on a single player but instead on a whole structure of teams, league and players has been now harvesting the fruits of this strategy – an Olympic gold medal and a second place in the world rank.

I am not saying that we should not have idols, use their superior abilities and capability to lead, however it cannot overcome the sense that all goal to be achieved demand hard work and teamwork.