I think there's so much emphasis on body image and results and outcome, but really what you should be after is to be healthy and to feel good about yourself.
Abby WambachRead
When you're a pro athlete, life is very narcissistic - everything relates back to you and how you play. When you are getting out of pro sports, you suddenly have to get a little more mindful of what's going on around you and how you affect the rest of the world.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the shift from a self-centered existence in professional sports to a more outwardly focused perspective after retiring.
Abby Wambach's quote reflects on the transformation that professional athletes experience as they transition out of their narcissistic careers, where their lives revolve around personal performance and recognition. Upon retirement, they are compelled to become more aware of their impact on the wider world and the need for mindfulness regarding their relationships and responsibilities beyond the sport.
In practice
In a motivational speech to young athletes about life after sports.
I think there's so much emphasis on body image and results and outcome, but really what you should be after is to be healthy and to feel good about yourself.
For any athlete growing up, the Olympics is the one thing you watch with your family, and it's the one thing you dream about. Seeing your country's flag go up as you get a gold medal is the best thing you can achieve.
I would trade all the individual awards I've won for a World Cup.
My teammates have put me in all different kinds of positions to score goals, and I can't say it enough, and I really through and through believe it in my heart that I'm only as good as my teammates allow me to be.
As soon as I started to realize that I could make a living playing professional soccer, I went to that place where I could torture myself because I knew it would make me better for the championship game.
I don't care how many championships you've won or how many records you've broken - if you've had a hand in pushing forward not only a game but women in sport's movement, then I think that's pretty darn good.
I think of bad news as a huge bird, with the wings of a crow and the face of my Grade Four school teacher, sparse bun, rancid teeth, wrinkly frown, pursed mouth and all, sailing around the world under cover of darkness pleased to be the bearer of ill tidings, carrying a basket of rotten eggs, and knowing- as the sun comes up- exactly where to drop them. On me, for one.
The best way to make room for both life and career is to make choices deliberately-to set limits and stick to them.
Oskar Schell: If the sun were to explode, you wouldn't even know about it for 8 minutes because thats how long it takes for light to travel to us. For eight minutes the world would still be bright and it would still feel warm. It was a year since my dad died and I could feel my eight minutes with him... were running out.
You're getting to be a big boy,' I said desperately, 'it's time you started thinking about your future.' 'I'm thinking about my future,' said Sonny, grimly. 'I think about it all the time.
Life does not require us to be consistent, cruel, patient, helpful, angry, rational, thoughtless, loving, rash, open-minded, neurotic, careful, rigid, tolerant, wasteful, rich, downtrodden, gentle, sick, considerate, funny, stupid, healthy, greedy, beautiful, lazy, responsive, foolish, sharing, pressured, intimate, hedonistic, industrious, manipulative, insightful, capricious, wise, selfish, kind or sacrificed. Life does, however, require us to live with the consequences of our choices.
Life wouldn’t be worth living if I worried over the future as well as the present. When things are at their worst I find something always happens.
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