THE STORY OF NOT GIVING UP

When I lifted that trophy with my hands, it was a completely different feeling. While everyone was looking at me, I had achieved what everyone was dreaming of… I had goosebumps. It was a completely different feeling that I had never experienced before.

We had eliminated all twenty-three rival teams. Despite great financial difficulties, we had become champions in the Champions League. How proud I was to wave my country's flag after the victory. My eyes still fill with tears when I remember it. The pleasure of this cannot be bought with money or anything else…

Don't let it look rosy from the outside, but...

This story is about those who never give up...

Years ago, when my sister and I were little, we had a happy family. My father was a football player, and my mother was a housewife. Both of them doted on us. Like every child, I would play ball with my friends and cousins in the neighborhood. I would go to training with my father.

When I started primary school, my father's illness became apparent, and he passed away shortly after. It was difficult to make sense of this at a young age and to cope with it. I think I inherited this love of football from my father.

After my father's death, my mother started working. Like every orphan child, I would encounter people who would be fathers to me in life…

My uncle took us under his wing. I will never forget that he bought my first pair of cleats. My mother also worked very hard not to be a burden to him. Working both outside and at home was tiring for her, but she was always there for us.

Then, I lost my left leg below the knee in an accident. I never wanted to talk about this accident after that.

We knew that these impossibilities had a meaning. Life was not rosy. There would always be a challenge. But how would I respond to these challenges? How would I know the right answer? How would I overcome these challenges with this flaw?

I learned the right answer from my mother. One day she asked me,

“If you were a boat on the sea, which would be the right wind?”

I said, “I don’t know!”

“If you have a place to go, the wind that blows there… Just as you choose the wind that blows to where you are going from among many winds, you will choose your own pain from among many pains. Either you will suffer for a lifetime, wondering, “Why did I become like this?” or you will sweat and suffer, working hard to be happy and successful for your own goals. What will you get in the first place? A big nothing. But in the second, you will be happy, and if you can, you will be successful.”

“But I am disabled, Mom! I have no feet!” I replied.

“You become disabled not when you lose a limb, but when you say, ‘I can’t do it,’ when you say, ‘I can’t learn,’” she said.

At that time, I would either build walls in front of me, or I would say, “It is very difficult to play football with one foot.” I would give up, that was easy… Or I would persevere for my goal.

“Every useful work is a little difficult,” my mother would say. “You have to have very strong reasons to endure that difficulty.”

If we had quit after that match where we lost the cup on penalties, could we have become world champions, for example? Would we have been able to wave that flag?

What did I have that was more than a strong reason? My shortcomings, my deficiencies, my desire to be useful to my family, my dream of wearing the national jersey…

“You shouldn’t give up. In addition to not saying I can’t do it, you also need to be persistent. If you can’t run, you’ll walk; if you can’t walk, you’ll crawl. If you can’t crawl, you’ll find a way to get to your goal. You’ll make a wheelchair, and you’ll get to that goal again,” I told myself.

My football career started with a brother I met in the neighborhood. There was an amateur football team for the disabled. I joined the team, and I never skipped practice.

I would wake up at 6 in the morning, go running, and work. I would work twice, sometimes three times, more than my friends. There would be days when I would get sunburned, and days when the heat of the pitch would make blisters on the soles of my feet. I couldn’t walk normally anymore, I would run so much! The more I succeeded, the more my self-confidence increased. Then I became a professional.

When I became a professional, I had to move. My new coach really liked my determination, discipline, and diligence. Now I had another goal. To be the captain of the team. But my shots were bad. I had set my mind on it; I would fix this deficiency. I went to training before everyone else, I shot many times, and I kept repeating. My shots got better, but I was physically inadequate. My coach said, “You will run.” I ran for forty, forty-five minutes every day.

People think that the path to success passes through rose gardens. There is no such world. It goes through painful times. No one says to you easily, “Take this success, it is yours,” but there is no environment more suitable for success.

Yes, I had not given up. I had not said, “I am disabled, I cannot do it.” I had not spent my whole life feeling sorry for that unfortunate accident, blaming that accident, and making sentences starting with “If only it had not been like this…” Instead of feeling sorry for what I did not have, I had focused on how to reach my goal with what I did have. I had learned that suffering for success was more profitable than suffering for the misfortunes that happened to me.

I was focused on one thing;

To be one step ahead of yesterday for my goal.

Now, I am dreaming of other successes again… That will make me happier…

Successes that will bring me total gain…

NOTE: Inspired by the life of an amputee national football player. Some statements are taken from his own interviews.

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It helps us to unveil problems correctly

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It helps us to reach our goals in life

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