This happened many years ago. I was at home and training using the elastic band. It’s meant for resistance training. While doing this, it slipped from its place and hit my right eye.

Right in the center of my eye. It felt as if someone had punched my eye with full force. My head instantly started to burst and it felt like my heart was pounding within my brain. I pushed my face into the sofa that was near me and screamed my lungs out. When I tried opening my eyes, all I could see was black dots everywhere. I looked into the mirror to see what damage had been done – my eyes were bloodshot and there was a blur in my right eye which wouldn’t go away no matter how many times I shut and opened my eyes. I forgot my pain for an instant and a very intense fear took over me. There were 3 thoughts rushing through my head at that time, as I recollect. First, was ‘I need to call 911’, second was, ‘am I ever going to play badminton again’ and the third was, ‘am I going to lose my sight?’

On reaching the hospital I was seen to by a doctor who told me I’m going to be alright but there has been a severe damage to my right eye. And it won’t get any better or fixed, Ever. ‘How is that me being alright?’ I thought. What was the damage? From my right eye I now saw a blurry white circle in the centre of my vision. To give you a perspective, imagine looking at the moon. Looking at it from my right eye, I only see a white blur. I can’t read with my right eye since, and everything I look at directly looks like a blurry circle. But the good news is that I can still see the remaining areas around that circle. The rest of it, so to speak, as that circle doesn’t cover all of my vision. Thank God for that. It’s kind of hard to explain but I’m hoping your getting the gist of it. My left eye is thankfully normal.

After my terrible accident I fell into despair for what I feared the most, had actually happened. When I finally got back on the badminton court I couldn’t hit the shuttle most of the time. Turns out I have a hard time figuring out the distance between my racket and the shuttlecock. So missing the shuttle was quite frustrating to say the least, for I had been playing and practically devoted my life to this sport for about 10 years (the picture above is me competing at a tournament in Stockholm). My dream to become a champion some day, started to fade, just like my vision had. We even traveled to Germany to meet with one of the best doctors in the world to get a second opinion; but even he had nothing new to say except that there could maybe someday be a cure to this condition. That wasn’t enough. It ended with me giving up my dream, my sport, and what I saw as ‘my life’.

Now years later, I have finally found a new passion, which is writing and through it help people change their lives or get inspired and motivated to do so. I have learnt so much from this particular incident and I would like to share some of the most important things with you, because I think you might be able to relate and hopefully learn something from it and even use it in your own life.

Be brave. And know that you can always start over, no matter how much time you have spent on something (a relationship, a job or a dream). For almost 10 years I fought for my dream. I paid for private coaching, traveled for hours to my training locale, attended competitions and literally ran in blistering cold to become stronger and better. Yet, because of one injury, my dream of becoming a champion didn’t come true. BUT! I don’t regret a single moment of all that because I was happy and I consider those playing day memories as one of the best phases of my life. I admit it took me years to even remotely feel as passionate about something other than badminton but I finally did. I realized how much I love to write and that I CAN make writing my new dream and with it inspire people and I love every moment of it. Don’t let failed dreams, relationships or anything for that matter EVER stop you from trying again. Never EVER give up trying to find what YOU want to do and what you feel passionate about. And there is ALWAYS something to feel passionate about if you only look for it. I’d like to add that one of our readers, Rick, mentioned in a comment to one of the articles how he quit his job of 30 years because of a new management team that took over. A decision like this must have involved a tremendous level of bravery. We can do more than we think we can, if we only dare to take the first step. Everything else will fall in place. And Rick also mentioned how happy this decision made him. Your dream can be anything you want it to be. Since life always changes, with it comes new priorities and if you feel that being a great mom or dad for your kids is what you’re truly passionate about then that’s beautiful and amazing. Don’t ever think that your dream or passion is ‘too small’ or ‘too big’. Anything that makes you truly happy and serves the greater good is a dream worth having and working towards. Loss is a part of life but it doesn’t mean we should give into despair. Yes it took me a long time to get over my loss but in the process of overcoming my loss I still kept my other passion alive. I kept reading, learning and growing and even though most of my family thought I was wasting my time listening to Tony Robbins and other self development tapes I kept on doing it, because I loved it. It kept me going. It kept me motivated and I knew that somehow all this information will be of very good use to me one day. So focus on what you still have and can do. Keep doing what you enjoy or find something new to do (in time, of course) because you never know what it can lead to. Loss taught me to be grateful. Before I had my vision impaired I always took my eyesight for granted. I never even thought that something would ever happen to my eyes, until it did of course. And ever since the accident I have been so incredibly grateful, to have not only the rest of my sight, but everything else, I once took for granted. Now I thank God or the universe for everything in my life, from the smallest things to the biggest. I’ve learnt that once we lose something we truly realize its value, but it doesn’t have to be like that. We can all start being more grateful today and right this moment for everything that we have.

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Choose to be happy,

Selma