Reflection 44 – How Football Might Teach Us The Most Important Life Lesson (El Koora Agwan )

Since I was a little child, I always loved football; both playing and watching. Although I never took it professionally, I would play for hours at the club or at school! I was an El-Ahly fanatic (not anymore!), and at some point in time when they stopped airing their regular league matches in mid 1990s for some time, I was a regular fan at Cairo stadium almost for every match along with my school bestie . Needless to say, there is no real fun or excitement in any game unless there are goals! Just imagine if we were to remove the need to score a goal to win and these 22 players would be just roaming around aimlessly on the pitch (no fun, right?). It will definitely be ugly and useless. The whole purpose of the game is that teammates get together to achieve a certain goal, which is to score. Now, forget what I just told you about football, and ask yourself: Do you have a GOAL in your life?! Just like football, your life and my life would be meaningless if we don‘t have a goal!

We, human beings, have been created for a noble purpose and in order to achieve it we need first to identify our goal(s) in life. When I reflect on myself, those around me, and people in general, it becomes very clear that successful people (and I don‘t mean financially here but rather those amongst us who have a meaningful life) are those with a clearly outlined set of goals (even evil people have their own definition for goals!). The nature of this life is that it will take us everywhere. We all have our different responsibilities that typically exceed the time we have in this life. Those of us who don‘t have a clear purposeful life, will be dragged (unfortunately) into much nonsense. Remember we are all standing on a conveyor belt taking us to our destiny, so unless we are aware FIRST that we are quickly moving and act accordingly, we won‘t achieve anything. Yes, we can live a normal life like billion others, or we can choose to add meaning to it.

I have probably said this several times before (actually my job as a professor taught me that it is pretty important to repeat yourself as you will always get that interesting student who will swear that he/she never heard this before ; usually it‘s a HE ), but personally I admire and respect those who do good to others in any capacity! Some of us will do grandiose work and others will do smaller stuff. There is no one-size fits all. Most important, it is done with a pure intention and willingness to help others. Sometimes very small gestures could be life-changers! One of us might decide to make someone happy each day as long as they live. You might buy a cup of coffee for that poor person cleaning the street. As simple as this! The whole idea is to have a clear goal that you and I will always need to refresh and remind our brains with! And always remember those players running around meaninglessly if there were no goals! And as our late commentator, Mohammed Latif, used to say El Koora Agwan (football is all about scoring goals).

I will leave you with this GOLDEN Prophetic saying that doing small amounts in a consistent manner is better than doing inconsistent big deeds!