An Underdog Story That Is More Than Just Inspiring
People love a good underdog story. Sometimes, the underdog triumphs like in Hoosiers, Miracle, and Rudy. Sometimes the underdog loses like in Cool Runnings, 300, and Gladiator. Win or lose, humans are drawn to these stories because they inspire us to believe that we too can overcome. We can conquer something overwhelming. We can rise […]
SWAN
People love a good underdog story. Sometimes, the underdog triumphs like in Hoosiers, Miracle, and Rudy.
Sometimes the underdog loses like in Cool Runnings, 300, and Gladiator.
Win or lose, humans are drawn to these stories because they inspire us to believe that we too can overcome. We can conquer something overwhelming. We can rise again after a devastating loss. When hearing those stories with a tragic ending, we still honor those who chose to stand against a greater force or compete when they had no hope of winning.
The Most Famous Underdog Story
Perhaps the most famous of all underdog stories is that of David and Goliath. Even their names have become adjectives to describe an underdog story.
For those who don’t know the story, David was a young Jewish man who worked as a shepherd. His country was attacked by a huge force from Philistia. The best and biggest of all the soldiers from Philistia was a man named Goliath. He stood far taller than the average soldier and had armor and a sword.
He taunted his enemy every day to send a champion to fight with him. No one would go. Until David offered.
David had no armor or sword and was far from a trained soldier. He only had a sling, five smooth stones, and faith in God to protect him.
Since this is a story about underdogs, most can guess how the story ends with the young man with the sling conquering the mighty soldier with the armor and weapons.
The Current Underdog Story
Every day in the news, we see a battle of David and Goliath proportions going on. An overwhelmingly larger and stronger force has invaded Ukraine to massacre her people and steal her land.
But the Ukrainians are like David of old. They lack weapons, but they fight on. They will not give up or surrender. What most might have thought would be an easy battle–most people probably expected Goliath to kill David without much effort too–has become a story of strength and resilience.
When one reads the history books filled with tales of underdogs, perhaps we imagine what we would have done. Could we have helped Sparta withstand the assault of Persia? Would we have been able to assist Spartacus in freeing slaves? Would we have risked our lives to hide Jews in our attics during the Holocaust?
Maybe we like to think that we would.
A Choice
And now we have that choice because this horrific war–this genocide–will be written in the history books. The brutalities currently occurring are horrifying and sickening. Orphanages, children, and maternity wards should never be bombing targets. Yet, they are.
The elderly, mothers, and children are without food or safety. Soldiers are going into battle without necessary weapons or body armor. People with limited mobility are forced to stay outside of bomb shelters they can’t physically reach.
And these are just the beginning of the horrors being inflicted on Ukraine.
This underdog story is personal to us here at Swan. Although we have developers all over Europe, many of our team members and families are Ukrainian. As we watch and pray and donate, we also urge everyone to do what they can to help make this underdog story be one that ends like Hoosiers rather than 300.
If you’d like to donate, here are two options.
Whether you can donate or not, we would still appreciate your thoughts and prayers for our team, families, and all of Ukraine. Swan continues to provide quality software to our clients, good jobs to our Ukrainian and European developers, and even hire new developers. Schedule a free assessment here.
God bless America.
God save Ukraine.