Bit of a diversion from what I should be doing now, but my pledge is coming. I guess I'm doing well to integrate some of the changes I plan to bring in already, so I want to write about something on my mind currently instead.
I am English, London born and bred, but by heritage, I am half Jamaican and half English (German descent). My skin, as you can imagine, is neither black nor white. I mention these things that shouldn't matter because once again, after a bad football result for England, I'm seeing horrible messages for the England team and England's best player last night, who happens to be very dark-skinned, suffered more racism, after his renowned experience last summer, after missing a penalty against Italy in the final of the European Championships. I am, of course, talking about Bukayo Saka. The boy is an absolute role model and generally a stand up human. This is what's most important about him, even before his footballing ability, but fortunately, he's unbelievably talented at that too.
This post, despite my love for the game, will not be focussed around football. I could talk about the intricacies of football, but I realised this is not the blog for that. Instead, I want to talk about faith.
A few days ago, a reporter asked Bukayo Saka what the bible meant to him, has he been reading it still and why does he read it. I thought this question would require a simple, generic answer, but instead, we got to hear about just what faith (in this case, in God) means to a 21 year old boy. I would probably class myself personally as agnostic, but this is a bit of a fence sitting opinion to have, so I will say that I lean more towards atheism, simply because I have grown up loving science and science teaches you to prove your theory before it has credibility. I find the creation story Physics can justifiably prove, more compelling than having blind faith in an idea, but that's just me and I respect everyone's personal choice a lot more than I want everyone to think the same as me. Sorry, I digress. Here's Saka's full answer if you wanted to see: https://twitter.com/linkomeiza/status/1600026915162578944?s=20&t=dEoLM5w0RLkuT1httuuygA
When I was watching his answer, I was struck by the wisdom he was displaying, despite the fact it's probably second nature to him by now; he certainly wouldn't have thought his answer was a particularly wise one. However, it struck a chord with me. After making the decision that I didn't believe in a God in the traditional, religious sense, I realised that just because I didn't have a God to pray to, I could not allow myself to lose faith and I realised that faith can come in so many forms. Saka's faith in God gives him confidence and belief that he can perform to the best of his ability in an elite sports environment... and it works. A lot of Atheists may believe that the belief in a God is pointless, past a few minor benefits, but the intangible benefits from having something to whole-heatedly believe in, no matter the situation, is, in my opinion, one of the greatest weapons we can wield against mental health struggles.
I realised this at a young age, and begun to really put faith in myself. I used to reaffirm myself regularly with positive lines and ideas about myself. "You really managed to get into uni with 1 D at A-Level, that is impressive" or "you finished in the top 5% of your uni course, despite the fact you almost failed twice 3 years ago". Pretty much any words that would reaffirm to myself that I was destined for a happy and successful life.
I am writing about this because this is something I have since completely ditched, for no reason other than laziness and complacency. I think it is imperative to my mental health that I can believe in something strongly enough to really give me a base of confidence and faith to fall back on; whether that's faith in a religion, a community or myself. See you on the next one.
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