How to take a load off

A few figures in human history have come to represent for the rest of us what realized potential looks like.

Realized potential is fun to watch, and it can bring tears of awe, and of affection for what is possible. It's what makes these figures not only famous, but revered, outside their specific disciplines. They provide us, the general crowd, a feeling of being inspired without asking for any commitment, a feeling of intense gratitude for what they could do.

Which is a windy way of getting around to the point. I have a couple of figures for you: Secretariat, and Luciano Pavarotti.

Today, or at any time of the day or night you need a lift in spirits, take a few minutes to go to YouTube and watch Secretariat winning the 1973 Belmont Stakes, and thus the "Triple Crown."

The Belmont Stakes is the third horserace in the Triple Crown series. It is the severest test of the three (which is why it comes last) because of its length, which is one and a half miles. Secretariat won the race by 31 lengths. It is the damnedest thing I have ever seen. (While you're there, if you want to see a horse shot out of a gun, watch Secretariat running the 1973 Preakness, the second race in the Triple Crown.)

Then, watch Luciano Pavarotti, singing "Nessun Dorma." Pavarotti was the opera star whose signature performance became "Nessun Dorma," from Puccini's opera, Turandot. "Nessun Dorma" only lasts a couple of minutes, but it is one of those passages that Puccini and others throw into their operas just to see if the singer can do it. That's why the fierceness comes across Pavarotti's face, after he has made it.

Both of these provide pure, salty, inspiration, really a kind of renewed faith in what is possible, which rolls out at the eyes and never fails to leave me feeling better. Just try it.