Andrew's Annotations and Anecdotes

Victoria Pendleton (pictured) won a gold medal at the Olympics and has won six cycling world championship titles to boot. She is also (as the photo suggests) a "girly-girl" who won the award for Britain's most glamourous Olympian in Beijing. Not a bad set of achievements for someone who is 28, one might think.

But in a brutally honest interview in The Guardian recently week she described her life in quite shattering terms:

"I'm terrible. I beat myself up the whole time because I'm striving for something I'll basically never achieve. I portray this image of confidence, of arrogance, and it's not really me. I'm never satisfied and I'm never content. It means I'm a bit of a mess some of the time. But I wouldn't be here talking to you if I was a different person."

In a world of cliches and trite answers her candidness is wonderfully refreshing. Here's how she describes her Olympic games and the trauma of being one of the last cyclists to race:

"I was an emotional wreck beforehand because, while I was happy for everyone else, I was apprehensive about my ride. I worried that I would be the one person who let down the team. So winning was just a relief. And even that felt like a complete anti-climax. It was very surreal on the podium and as soon as I stepped off it I was, like, 'What on earth am I going to do now?' I found it quite hard to deal with. It was, like, I've got no purpose anymore."

It is, I suspect, an astonishingly common way for people to feel having reached the pinnacle of their chosen profession or talent. And what a wonderful signpost that, without a knowledge of the final purpose of the human race, and of my own life, any achievement is always going to feel somewhat hollow and empty. In the end, I'm sure, Pendleton knows perfectly well that her cycling legs will fade and that another rider will, one day, eclipse her achievements. And that, of course, is true for all of us. Her answer to this relentless quest and its unsatisfying conclusion?

"I soon worked out that the only thing I could do was to get another gold medal. I need one. If 2012 goes to plan, winning the Olympics on my home turf, I might finally feel I've achieved the ultimate for me."

Well I'd be prepared to bet that Victoria Pendleton won't find that kind of satisfaction even if she does win in 2012. And, I suspect, that in her most honest moments she knows she won't either.

So what are we left with? Well a simple choice I think. either we have to accept that there is nothing that can provide true satisfaction - because there is no final purpose to our lives. Or we have to relentlessly pursue the answer to the one question that takes us to first base and enables us to answer all other questions: "what am I here for?" The great news of the Christian gospel is that we don't have to go further than the pages of the world's best-selling book to find the answer!