The World Cup: More than just a game

The passion. The emotions. The spirit. Football is more than just a sport involving 22 men on a pitch. It unites the world either in tears or in joy, in triumph or defeat, in strength or in weaknesses. We are all seen as one in a month of celebration of the world's greatest sport.

How can Japan and Ghana carry the hopes of not just their countrymen, but the hopes of an entire continent? What makes a man of sanity lose his mind to use a part of his body that is forbidden in the laws of the game? Why are the neutrals always rooting for the underdogs despite the disparity in talent between two sides?

These are just some of the many questions that have made this World Cup campaign so unique to me and everyone else. There is a special feeling inside, one that provides soul for each and every one of us. The past month or so has allowed me to look back at life in a whole new perspective: that life is more than just living our daily routines but rather a collection of great memories put together that makes me thankful that I'm here to experience every moment of it. Whether in good times or in bad times, we must live through them and just take it in as an experience of a lifetime, just like in the World Cup.

In life, there are the good guys, our friends and family that we support like Japan and Ghana, and there are the bad guys, like Luis Suarez and Felipe Melo. We may cry with them and share their despair, and get mad with the bad guys for their actions. Or we can choose to look at it in a good light, take it as an invaluable experience and say we can only look forward into the future cos' we want more of life.

I have to say I have experienced true emotions within the past month, from the World Cup to NYLF to the examinations to just hanging out with my good pals on a lazy Saturday afternoon and no matter how angry I am with some things or how happy I am with others, I am just thankful for it and glad that I can get more of it as each day passes by.

We will miss the World Cup and I am missing NYLF, but life is a collection of good memories and like the rest of them, these two are for keeps.

God Bless and Peace