I once cried because I had no shoes to play soccer, but one day, I met a man who had no feet.
Zinedine ZidaneRead
I was lucky to come from a difficult area. It teaches you not just about football but also life.
Interpretation
Adversity can provide valuable life lessons beyond just skills in one area, such as sports.
Zinedine Zidane reflects on how growing up in a challenging environment has shaped his understanding of life as well as football. This perspective suggests that experiences of hardship can teach resilience, perseverance, and important life lessons that extend beyond one's immediate passions or career paths.
In practice
During a motivational speech at a sports camp.
I once cried because I had no shoes to play soccer, but one day, I met a man who had no feet.
You rarely come across the complete footballer, but Scholes is as close to it as you can get. One of my regrets is that the opportunity to play alongside him never presented itself during my career.
I was lucky to come from a difficult area. It teaches you not just about football but also life. There were lots of kids from different races and poor families. People had to struggle to get through the day.
It was so much fun to have the freedom to wander America, with no assignments. For 25 or 30 years I never had an assignment. These were all stories I wanted to do myself.
Why do so many of us not give ourselves permission to be alive until we are absolutely assured that we will die? ...If we are not in [this present millisecond of life and conscious experience], we are not alive; we are merely thinking our lives. Yet we have seen so many die, looking back over their shoulders at their lives, shaking their heads and muttering in bewilderment, "What was that all about?"
Oftentimes, even myself as I've come through my entire career from high school all the way up here, everything has been football, football, football. And then you realize that life is much bigger than this game, especially when you start thinking about life after football and what you want to leave behind.
I've been around longer than most of my fans have been alive.
This world would be a whole lot better if we just made an effort to be less horrible to one another. If we took just five minutes to recognize each other's beauty instead of attacking each other for our differences - that's not hard - it's really an easier and better way to live.
And yet, now that years have passed, I recall it and wonder that it could distress me so much. It will be the same thing, too, with this trouble. Time will go by and I shall not mind about this either.
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