It may sound counter-intuitive, but I believe many people are depressed because they live excessively in their own heads. And when you live a life centered in your mind, you are turned inward, likely listening to a constant inner dialogue of judgement and criticism: I'm not good enough, beautiful enough, strong enough.
Dealing with all these hardships, we often forget about sports and its importance in our life. For me, never-ending love for sports has contributed to my upbringing as a strong person.
The very first game which I took as a child at the age of 5 years was football. Since then, I never looked back. Though as a kid Football remained one of my favorite sport for a very long time. But as I grew older, I started taking part in other sports also.
I completed my schooling from Kendriya Vidyalaya and Military School. As my parents were in a transferable job so I had to keep changing my school where the sporting facilities were different from the previous school.
The love for trying out new games helped me to learn and play a new sport until I reached my Higher Secondary. Maybe, I was fortunate enough that I got such facilities and exposure to trying out everything that was available for me. In my senior secondary, I was selected as the Sports Captain of my school for 2 years in a row. Even after school, I continued playing so many sports simultaneously along with my engineering studies and represented my College team in Basketball, Volleyball, and Football at the same time.
One of the major injuries happened to me in the year 2013, where I had twisted my Knee while playing an inter College Football tournament. I was bedridden for a month. The doctor advised not to play football again if I want to lead a normal life. But, I trained myself hard in the gym and did everything possible to strengthen my ligaments and returned to the football field in the year 2015. I had a sense of achievement after playing my first game in two years of time after going through such a long rehabilitation period.
So far, the sporting journey for me has been so much drama. It helped me to learn to self-reliance and believe in team building and trusting the strength of each other in a crisis.
Practising Sports in my daily curriculum has been one of the pioneers in my personal life.
As it is also said, "One man practising sportsmanship is far better than a hundred teaching it."
I always try to become a better version of me every day when I come to the field.
Saurabh Nag
Class of 2020
Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar