ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the fire that drives athlete to achieve results, make and withstand sacrifices, and sustains ideas, values or hopes the imaginable. It argues that a subject's set of ideals together with their set of values, govern acts, feelings and conduct within his or her culture, and are responsible for the way in which a subject is regarded within a historical/cultural chain. The study of ideals reveals aspects that are intimately related to athlete's early ways of seeking self-esteem. The ideal arises from a claim on the infant, moulded by his environment. The ideal is formed by a subject's disillusionment with the parents and the attempt to win once again the admiration of those he cares about by adjustment to the way in which he's judged. Ideals in themselves can vary and be modified throughout one's lifetime, whereas the meta-ideals are usually much more stable and fixed.
