The everlasting impact of sport in our lives

We often hear/read a quote on social media sites – “Life is a game, but sport is serious.” Immediately, various entities from a plethora of fields other than sport, roll their eyes in amazement. But is the quote really that irrational? Is it really personifying hyperbole? Is the art of sport such a vital cog in our engine that without it’s presence our entire chassis has no relevance? Some may argue. What cannot be argued though, is how sport is one of the – if not the only – prime ingredients that our life needs.

At school, we are taught various subjects. Sport is taught too. But institutions rarely focus on the spiritual side of it. (Yes, it has a spiritual side.) We are barely taught how it will influence our mind, soul and even our personality. Sport is as much a finishing school for the mind, as it is for the body.

Any phenomenon that has the innate power to attract our attention and have it under it’s spell regardless of our fatigue levels, health, busy schedules, deserves to be respected. Sport, quietly, almost effortlessly, manages to hypnotise us. It serves as our escape from reality, by serving us a different reality. On a sports field, nothing is choreographed. Nothing is scripted. There are no re-takes. And yet, it engages us better than the most carefully crafted feature presentation.

Humanity has evolved leaps and bounds. We have almost reached a point where there is a new ground-breaking invention every other day. And yet those primal instincts of achievement, competition, resilience, survival, hope are desired by even the best of us. Sport combines these instincts, tosses them in a bowl, adds its own flavouring and serves it to us. It is therefore, no surprise, that we relish it so much.

There is something unexplainable about the surge of emotions we feel when we chant our team’s anthem along with 50,000 compatriots. There is something magical about the pride that we conjure up while getting our faces painted, our hair styled, our schedules re-modelled, in readiness for an event happening miles away from us. It is that quintessential human thirst for victory and one-upmanship that sport quenches.

Each victory of our team inflates our morale to the extent of us feeling unbreakable. With each goal, each boundary and each ace, our mundane sorrows and tensions take a backseat and the child within us comes to the forefront and eventually takes over. Sport cradles that child. Hence, we tend to pledge our allegiance to it.

The famous Kop End at Anfield, Liverpool.

When we watch dreams getting fulfilled, hopes getting re-built, teams fighting for survival, players performing as if their life depended on it, efforts being uncompromisingly put on the field, it gives us that faith back again. Faith in the goodness of karma. Faith in the rewards of perseverance. Faith in humanity. And after a long, hard day at work, or a disaster of a month, or a year, sometimes that iota of faith is all we need to get ourselves back on track again. Sport is that catalyst.

It never deters from its core agenda. Unlike so many other things, sport never changes colour. It is pure, transparent, and consistent with its mission and objective. And the earlier we start following sport in our lives, the more time it has to etch itself into our sub conscience and influence our belief system. We sometimes unknowingly surrender ourselves to sport. And it never misuses that power. It cradles our vulnerable minds and shapes it into a strong, magnificent fortress.

It is therefore, no exaggeration, to say that sport is as important as spirituality. Anything that teaches us the core values of team spirit, unity, leadership, perseverance, all whilst giving us some of the most memorable moments of our lives, some of the most high-octane drama and action, and some of the most iconic episodes, needs to be taken seriously. It is, indeed, serious. All whilst being as fun as one could’ve hoped it to be. Sport is magic. And magic never needs to be explained. It just needs to be enjoyed.