I don’t know whether it is because Costa Rica is often confused with Puerto Rico, or because we share the same name, but Mónica Puig had me cheering for her for the whole 2 hours and 10 minutes of the women’s tennis gold medal match at the Olympics. During those 2 hours and 10 minutes I watched her fight tenaciously against the No. 2 player in the world (Angelique Kerber): I saw her win the first set and lose the second, I saw her win the first five games of the third set and lose the sixth, I saw her lose three match points before she could secure the highest spot at the podium. The one thing she didn’t lose was her calm and determination.
And well, the gold medal.
You always see young athletes at the Olympics but for some reason seeing another 22-year-old Latin-American standing there with a medal around her neck and her country’s national anthem resonating around the stadium really got to me. It was the epitome of how young people should do things, how we should go after what we want even when we are “young, inexperienced and naïve.”
Let’s be clear: everyone who competes at the Olympics has worked extremely hard. I’m not saying Mónica is more meritorious or inspirational simply because she is young, because much younger athletes have already slayed Olympic records and will probably continue to do so. What inspired me about Mónica was the determination and confidence with which she faced far more seasoned athletes.
I feel like most people were expecting for her to play a little bit more defensively, to wait for her opponents to set the pace of the game; after all she is less of a veteran and should have been intimidated by these Grand Slam champions and top-10-rankers, but she wasn't. She attacked every game and played at her own rhythm because she was focusing on playing her best game, regardless of who was on the other side of the net.
In a sentence: she played them as equals.
I feel that as millennials we are often told we are too entitled, we aspire to too much, we want to take the easy path; it’s almost as if older generations would like for us to take a step back and in a way “respect the hierarchy” or wait for our turn. But the way Mónica played every single one of her matches at the Olympics is exactly why Millennials should go after what they want: there is no reason to wait for our turn when we can go for it right now. If you want it badly enough and are willing to work hard enough for, it is 100 percent possible to achieve it (whatever it is).
Mónica won gold because she had this very clear. Her mind wasn’t set in rankings or previous scores, she knew what she was capable of there and then. Let’s be real, statistically she wasn’t supposed to be a gold medalist, but if she had thought about how she had four more years to take the gold home, “La Boriqueña” (Puerto Rico’s Anthem) probably wouldn’t have been heard in Rio that afternoon.
We are achieving what we are achieving as a generation not because we are entitled, or because we want to cut corners but because, like Mónica, we know what we can achieve and we are not afraid of going after it. I hope as a generation we continue to not settle, I hope we continue to not wait because the truth is we can do great things right now. I hope we millennials continue to stand up to those who think we should sacrifice what we truly love to pursue a “stable” career. I hope we continue to go after what we want, whether that is quitting our job to start a company, becoming a travel blogger or joining a startup; but I hope we do it focusing on what we do best: being connected, more globally-minded, more tolerant and less willing to settle.
Mónica showed us all 22-year-olds that heart and hard work can beat experience and that we shouldn’t be afraid of how far we can make it. Statistics and rankings shouldn’t mean anything to those know they can make it to the top of the podium. We have it in us to do it — to destroy stereotypes, to defy what career means, to spread the love, to not let others decide what our lives will be — if only we are as unable to accept defeat as Mónica was.
