I’ve been wrong before, and I will be wrong again. I have never been one to shy away and hide in the moments of my mistakes. I have always believed that if you truly learned from your mistakes, if you acknowledged them, apologized for them, and were not ashamed of them, then you could learn and move on. I write this knowing I made a mistake. Now, the extent of the mistake was not very large, and in fact, it has probably done more good than harm. The mistake allowed me to learn a lot about myself, to learn I had a passion for a sport I once barely took a second glance at. But more importantly, it showed me that I can stand up for something I believe in and make noise about it, bring attention to it, and with enough effort, even get a message out. So I stand here, metaphorically of course, before all of you to admit I made a necessary mistake.
This mistake I speak of revolves around the main message of the site I created, yet more so around the thoughts I had in regards to what it took to motivate and inspire. I made this site one year ago with the idea that I could turn myself into someone who could step on a professional stage after a year, maybe two, of training and hold my own in a professional arena. I failed to realize just the extent to what I had proclaimed. What I failed to realize was that I was shooting for the heavens instead of the moon. I took what I was trying to accomplish, to show those with chronic disease that life isn’t over upon diagnosis, and I got carried away. For that, I apologize. For all the game stats, for all the photos, and more importantly, for all the ego. I apologize not because the message isn’t true, but because I let my ego in to a pure idea and once that ego took over, it ran away. It wasn’t until recently, after going over several of my latest articles that I noticed this.
You see, something always nagged at me in the back of my mind. I would post game stats and think, “What about people who don’t care for soccer? Does it really matter if you play at any level or is it more important that you are simply playing?” I had fooled myself for a while and thought, “Ya, this is built on a platform of being successful.” Yet, I failed to define exactly what success was. Is success making it pro, or is success living out a normal healthy life despite the diagnosis of a chronic disease? Is success making a save against the top player in the country, or is it walking out my front door without the fear of not knowing where a bathroom was? These things have been on my mind of late, and after my last article that spoke to the power of physical activity and weightlifting in regards to my symptoms, I decided to take a good long time to think. Let me, once again, let you into my mind.
Sport got me out the front door. Sport made me into someone sociable again. Yet sport did not make me symptom free; that is, it didn’t make me symptom free on its own. As I said in one of my recent articles: once I began lifting weights again, and paying mind to the health of my body, I began to notice a shift in my symptoms. There still is a massive decrease in symptoms since I’ve been regularly lifting and running/rowing. To be truthful, I’ve never felt better. Weightlifting and bodybuilding has made me once again feel as though I am in charge of my body. But that is not to say that sport doesn’t have a place. Sport gave me the confidence to act on these choices. It gave me the ability to share my story, and most importantly, it kickstarted a return to physical activity for me. Sport has played a very active role in getting me to where I am today, and I wouldn’t hesitate for a minute to give soccer the credit it deserves in getting me out of that basement a year ago and giving me my life back. So, where does that leave us?
Where it has left me was to analyzing the message I am conveying and making right by it by turning this site into what it was initially supposed to be: a place of hope. You see, the message hasn’t changed. Sport and physical activity are two often overlooked factors in fighting back against disease. I will believe in this until the day I die and will advocate for it until that day. But what I see when I look at this site is far from what I envisioned. Game stats, soccer pictures, a team page that was never completed. No, this is not it. Going back to the questions I asked myself. What is success? I can tell you that it is not competing professionally, at least not to me. All that does is prove something to myself and my ego, not to others. And hence, my mistake. So what is success? Success is will power if I can paraphrase CT Fletcher (if you don’t know who this is, I highly suggest a quick YouTube search). It is the willpower to push back against disease, using physical activity and sport as that step. To me, success if sharing my story, with the hope to inspire others to do the same, to pick up their cleats or a barbell and fight their way back to health and a normal life. That success relies on me continuing to live my story because if I can battle back from Ulcerative Colitis, you can battle back to.
We live lives in which we continually hear stories of people beating impossible odds or accomplishing impossible feats. Maybe there really is no such thing as impossible. Maybe it is all in our minds. I know I sat in that basement a year ago and thought it impossible that I would ever be well again. Was I ever wrong. Another mistake on my part. It was will power, sheer determination, motivation, and a little luck but I overcame my “impossible feat” and continue to do so daily. Roger Bannister was the first human to run a sub four-minute mile; again something once thought of as impossible which is now done almost monthly. Impossible is a mental state, a mindset that we must overcome to be successful.
So what does this all mean for Athletics for Life. Honestly, it doesn’t mean much. The message has never changed, nor will it. Physical activity and sport participation help with chronic disease. What will change though is the site. Over the next couple of weeks, I will be revamping the site with new content, and maybe even a new look. Some things will get taken away, some things will get added, and some things I never really used before due to the nature of soccer will be used.
I still have my vision. That vision is to rid the world of chronic disease. Sounds impossible right? Maybe but maybe not. I will continue my journey and continue writing the pages of my story here for others to see, with the hope I can inspire and motivate. And with that also comes the promise that I will continue to strive for that success to make my vision a reality. I will strive to leave my door every morning with the bravery to face my disease day in and day out, and I strive to not let it make the choices of my everyday life.