My Moment of Truth

“Football is God’s gift to humanity.” From the age of three, the tactical, physical, and elegant game of soccer has been a part of my life. When people meet me, one of the first thing’s they learn about me is my love for soccer. Over the past decade Saturdays and Sundays have always been filled with countless soccer games and tournaments, and the game has brought me and my family across the country. I started out playing for local recreational teams, and then when I was 7, went to play for my first club team.

Throughout elementary school and then middle school, I continued to play soccer on many different teams, some good, some bad, but I loved the game regardless.

I have been on many club teams from my home town to Irvine, to San Juan Capistrano. My first club team was Arsenal and it was here in Temecula, I played on that team for about two years and then I moved to another team called the Hawks, also located in Temecula.

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When I was eleven my coach pulled my parents aside and told them that I had an incredible gift for soccer and that if I wanted to play with girls at the same level that I was at, I would have to go to a team that wasn’t in the valley. I started looking around at clubs in the San Diego area and beyond, and ended up at a club in San Juan Capistrano, called the So Cal Blues.

I was in 6th grade at the time and it was a huge commitment for me and my family. I had to do homework in the car on the way to practice, that was about an hour and a half to two hours away, but my coach was the best coach I’ve ever had. I also got scouted to be a part of the Olympic Developmental Program that selects the top 1% of girls that play soccer in California and that is an experience that I will never forget.

As I moved into Junior High, which started in 7th grade at my school, me and my family decided that the drive was too much so I joined a team in Ontario, which was half the drive I was taking before. I ended up leaving part of the way through the season and joining another team in Temecula because the coach was very degrading and disrespectful to me and the other girls on my team. Little did I know, I was walking into another situation that was pretty much the same as the one I was in before, the coach was horrible and after a year I didn’t have the same spark of desire for the game as before.

I ended up reconnecting with the Hawks club in Temecula that I had played for before and the coach had me out for practice. I decided to give it a shot and was put on his 2003 girl’s academy team. After a few months with the team, I didn’t know if I wanted to play soccer anymore. The girls had been together for a long time and I was struggling to connect with them on and off the field. I had never had trouble making connections with people at all before, I had always been the outgoing kid with a ton of friends, so this was a big change for me. I wasn’t getting much playtime and was ready to give up soccer for good. I knew that a big change was around the corner I just didn’t know what it was.

In being a freshman in high school, I was getting to explore the sports and activities that high school had to offer. I was very connected with my school, and because of my commitment to club soccer, I was unable to participate in what I wanted to be a part of at my school. As I considered my options of staying with club soccer, or quitting, so I could be more involved in school activities, I was seeking out advice from those who knew me and I talked through my options with my parents multiple times. I knew that I had played soccer for 11 years of my life and that it was something that I had enjoyed. I asked myself if it was something that I still loved and wanted to pursue in light of the fact that I might not get along with my teammates and play less than I normally did. It took a lot of consideration because I knew that if I decided to give up soccer for good that it would make a big impact on the future of my life. If I continued to play, I knew that there was no turning back and that I would make an effort to play in college.

After a number of days, I made the decision to continue to play soccer. I knew that I loved the game and that I was willing to make sacrifices to continue to play. A year later, I am 14 and a sophomore in high school. When I made the commitment to continue to play, I was unsure that what I decided was the right thing, but now I am certain that it is. It took a while, but now I am very well connected with my team and will stay with them until I graduate. I am glad with my performance on the field and have found my love for soccer again.

In his memoir, Shepherd states that there are four moments of truth in a person’s life and that the way we handle them is what seals our fate. In my moment of truth, I handled it very differently than Shepherd handled his, but at the same time, I could relate to some of his feelings as he was on the blind date. I could relate to him because, I too had a longing to get out of the situation that I was in and experienced the embarrassment that he felt. There were many times on the soccer field where I would make a bad pass, or mess something up and hear the yelling of my teammates for my mistake. Despite some similarities, there were also differences. When I saw the decision that I had to make and its impact on my life, I realized that I had to do something about it and that I couldn’t just sit around and wait. When Shepherd realized what was going on in his situation, he didn’t do much about it and states “I didn't say much the rest of the night. There wasn't much to be said.” Our moments ended very differently because of this. Shepherd’s ended in an unfinished way, and nothing good came out of it. I believe this is because he did not take action and also took a very pessimistic approach to what was happening to him. My moment ended with success, because I took action and made the most of my experience. I also believe that our endings were different because we have a different outlook on life.

Shepherd states that as we grow up and start finding who we are, we all walk down the yellow brick road of life. One side of the road is filled with the “accursed, anonymous Audience' while the opposing side is where the “Prime Ministers, the Presidents, Cabinet members, Stars, [and] dynamic molders of the Universe” travel. As he thinks about his life, he says that for those of us who go on to become the audience, “Forever down in the dark dungeons of our souls we ask ourselves: ‘How did they get away from me? When did I make that first misstep that took me forever to the wrong side of the street.’” After considering his statements, I concluded that as everyone walks down the yellow brick road of life, every single person on the road is walking down the middle together. It doesn’t matter who we are, whether we are the President, or just a simple person making our way through life. We all live on the same planet and we can impact each other in our actions. When he says “wrong side of the street” I would disagree and say that there is no “wrong side” because I believe that even though we don’t have people asking for our autograph everywhere we go, doesn’t mean that we are not equal to those who are famous or well known, we can make just as much of an impact on the world as they can. Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and Gandhi are examples of ordinary people who decided to make the world a better place and help those around them. They were a part of the “accursed, anonymous, Audience” and they made a huge impact on people’s lives and changed the course of our history dramatically.

Overall, I believe that in my moment of truth and Shepherd’s, there are similarities as well as differences in the way we handled them. As Shepherd looks at his life, he looks at it in more of a fatalistic way than I do and it contributed to the differences in the way we handle and react to different situations, along with our different outlooks and opinions on life. In the words of Mother Teresa, “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.” To further contrast Shepherd, I plan to live my life with the goal of impacting the world despite the fact that I am one of the “accursed, anonymous, Audience.”