MEHMET AKSEL
I have been involved with sports since I was very young.
For thirty-odd years, I did horse riding and I did motor sports for another ten.
One of the most important lessons that sports taught me is flowing with a rhythm, and another is never looking back, no matter what.
Let me explain…
You enter a show jumping competition, and there are 12 fences to jump.
When you enter the competition arena, you first salute the judges, and then comes one of the most crucial moments that the audience and even some riders have no idea about.
This is the moment when you start cantering your horse.
Before crossing the start line, you start canter and put your horse in a good rhythm that will make you and your horse feel good and in harmony throughout the whole competition.
This is one of the key moments of the competition, the pace and the flow that that pace provides.
For some reason, I always find it amazing how similar the flow of the competition is to the flow of our lives.
One day, I was chatting with Mr. Özyeğin (Hüsnü), and he said that if you stop, you fall. It’s exactly that.
After that critical moment, there are 12 fences, which you will jump over one by one, and there are three important things that I’ll simply describe below. (I want to specifically write it down one by one, since each fences has to be dealt with one by one.)
– Approaching the fence well,
– Jumping over the fence well,
– And calculating for the best and smartest approach to the next fence once you’ve landed over the previous fence.
In fact, we can compare this to life as well. To approach people, things or events as best as we can, to uphold honesty and to prepare for the next ones…
There is another teaching in horse riding and I think that is the most important one.
You don’t ever look back.
– You may have had a fence down or you may have bumped into a fence, there may have been a million different kinds of mishaps two seconds ago, either over a fence or in the whole competition.
– Oh, and this mishap can happen on the first fence or on the penultimate one; but you always know that there are more fences ahead, so you cut your losses and move forward.
And this is how my outlook on life has always been (this is what I sought it to be).
For years, I tried to approach all the fences I came across in my life in the way I thought was the most appropriate, with respect to the conditions and the consciousness of the time.
Now I realize that I have made hundreds if not millions of stupid miscalculations.
Isn’t it natural and normal?
In one of my articles, I wrote, “The scars on my body and the fractures in my bones always make me feel like I’m living to the fullest”.
But I think that my most important achievement in sports and life (under all conditions and every time) has been to find another fence without ever looking back and to approach each fence in the best way I can, with my knowledge and experience, and try to jump over it.
In most of the movies I watch, something always troubles my head.
For one reason or another, the protagonist of the movie seems to have a lousy life.
He or she is unhappy, but more importantly, is hopeless because of his/her job, family, environment or other circumstances.
My dear friend, go away, leave this shit behind.
Get on the bus and go to a brand new country, a brand new state, to a completely different climate and start a brand new life.
No matter how old you are, what you have been through, you have 70-80 years given to you and you should not waste a single day of these years.
Of course, this is a movie and there is the “there would be no movie if it weren’t” issue, but the same feeling has always been there for me in my life.
I can’t understand people who are unhappy with their lives and fail to make changes or are unable to do so.
He is not satisfied with his partner, he is not satisfied with his job, he is not satisfied with his wife, he is not satisfied with where he lives; dude, these things happen, but it’s up to you to change them, and what’s best, you can take action at that very moment to change it; what are you waiting for?
I don’t get hung up on someone failing at something. (You should have seen the things I did, the things I experienced, you should have seen failure like I do it.)
But you know what bothers me, what I have trouble with? I have trouble with and am surprised by those who can’t get themselves out of that spiral.
There’s a new fad.
It’s the depression squad.
I was chatting with a doctor friend of mine, she said that Mehmet would not even let Mehmet get depressed. She’s got a point.
What depression, we have no time to waste, not even a single day.
You just don’t look back. You just keep flowing, because that’s the joy of living.
I think a person needs to renew/refresh his relationship with life every day so that he can have hope.
Ali Poyrazoğlu (born 1946), an actor, writer and director who has been a UNICEF Turkey Goodwill Ambassador since November 2012, has a story that I truly love.
As far as I remember, his students persistently ask his age, and after a few clever maneuvers, he thinks there is no point in trying to escape, and responds, 65.
One of the students takes a rope out of his pocket and says, “Sir, the average life expectancy in Turkey is 85 years” measures the rope and cuts 85 centimeters.
Then he cuts 65 cm of that piece and hands over the remaining 20 cm of thread to Ali Bey saying, “Here’s all that’s left for you.”
The master had told the story, describing it as “A life lesson from students to a teacher.”
I hope you’ll have a long life and fill all the remaining centimeters with your real desires as opposed to your obligations starting from 2022.