Are We Giving Trophies for Breathing Now? The Participation Award Epidemic

Look, we’ve all heard the saying – “Showing up is 80% of the effort.” But goodness gracious, is that benchmark really sinking so low that high schoolers are being celebrated merely for the act of… um… breathing? Reserve that participation trophy for an actual sporting event or club activity, not because your metabolism is functional.

Now, put on your sarcasm filter, folks, because we’re about to dive deep into this fresh and riveting topic: Participation Trophies for Breathing – The New Low in High School Achievements.

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You showed up? Congratulations. So did everyone else with a pulse. You’re lucky no trophy for “Existence of a Heartbeat” has been invented yet or we’d be knee-deep in plastic awards cluttering up our living rooms. Trust me when I say: I don’t agree with this at all.

Is there any scientific basis to back this manufactured ‘achievement’? Do we really want to foster a culture where the bar is set so staggeringly low? End result: a bunch of confused kids wandering into adulthood, award in tow, expecting a reward for every minimal effort, expecting applause for waking up in the morning and a standing ovation for eating breakfast.

In today’s Little League, even the youngest players receive trophies merely for showing up. While intended to encourage participation, one can’t help but wonder if these awards are setting the bar too low, celebrating the mere act of attendance rather than genuine effort or improvement.

Oh, but let’s not stop at breathing. Why not give out awards for ‘Blinking at a Regular Pace’, or ‘Having Managed to Retain Enough Moisture for the Production of Saliva’? Who knows, ‘Natural Body Hair Growth’ could be up and coming at the next batch of award ceremonies.

Now imagine your child – a straight-A student, crazy talented musician, potentially a Nobel Prize recipient in the future – flipping through their scrapbook filled with plastic trophies for mundane, automatic bodily functions. Side by side with their graduation certificate, won’t those breathing trophies look downright ridiculous?

What happened to the respect for and the point of accomplishments? Vanished, replaced by validation in the form of flimsy baubles for “Just Living.” In trying to make everyone a participant, we have essentially turned significance into something laughably trivial. Medalists know that their perseverance, blood, sweat, and tears are what lead them to that podium. Can we honestly say the same for someone who got an award for fully-functioning bronchi?

When I was in school, there were no participation trophies. You had to earn it — or fight for it. It built character. If you wanted something, you chased it. Nothing was handed to us. And if you lost? You took it, learned from it, and got better. No applause for just showing up.

Let’s get realistic, folks. The aim of schools is to prepare our children for the world, not create an alternate, diluted universe where the sun always shines, and everybody is a winner merely for existing. Let’s emphasize achievements that truly make a difference, not actions we perform subconsciously.

Because in the real world – and trust me on this – nobody claps when you walk into the office in the morning with a beating heart and working lungs. So, until they start giving out trophies for “Most Coffee Consumed in a Meeting” or “Successfully Completed Monday Without Combusting,” let’s keep the participation awards to a minimum and reserve them for actual achievement, not automatic bodily functionality.

And if you’re annoyed by my sarcasm, well, congratulations on interpreting my tone – perhaps there’s a trophy for that too!

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