"Messi Moment"

This is the translation of my post in Marathi from the week of 2nd July. 


The week started on a disappointing note. My son wanted to get up at 5:30 A.M. in the morning to watch the Copa America tournament final between Argentina and Chile. I managed to convince him to get up at 6:30 A.M. so that he could watch the match from the second half onward. The score card continued to be blank during regular time and even during the extra time. Soham had to leave for the school bus before penalty shootouts started. Messi hit the first kick out of the goal post. Eventually Argentina ended up losing the final. 

Despite having excellent track record while playing from Barcelona club, this turned out to be the fourth successive loss in the final of a major international tournament for Messi and Argentina. Messi always had carried this agony of not being able to crown his country with any major international title. The sorrow of missing out the starting penalty kick in the final added the salt to this agony and in an apparently spur-of-the-moment decision, he announced his retirement from the international soccer tournaments.

This messy moment in life of Messi received world wide publicity since he is "Messi". But common people like us always keep on experiencing such messy moments in our lives on regular basis. We try our best staying calm, convincing ourselves not to lose hope and get back to the grind of our daily lives. Here are the examples of such tasting moments in common man's life. 

1. Currently the monsoon is at its peak in Mumbai. The road conditions all over the city have deteriorated to nadir all across the city. The daily commute (which in other seasons takes close to half an hour) has prolonged to anything above 1 Hr. This tastes our patience to extreme level. To get parking space in the office building , you still have to leave on time from home and give those extra 15-30 minutes for the awful traffic conditions. At the same time you have to be extra careful to keep you car safe from reckless driving of bikers and auto rickshaw drivers. Those who travel by trains during rainy seasons face more miserable situations on daily basis. 

While living our lives as normal citizen of the city, we assume the smooth travel conditions as our basic right. But when we see that the authorities have failed badly on this front, our frustrations grow drastically. Still we continue to cope with these apparently disappointing situations on regular basis and never give up. The teachings of "living up to our responsibilities irrespective of unfavorable surroundings" received as part of our middle class upbringing keeps us going.

2. There are so many instances in our professional lives which keep on dragging us on the verge of these "messy moments". But most of the times we refrain from taking that extreme decision of calling it a quit. The need of keeping on earning money on regular basis for our daily needs can be one of the primary reasons for this tendency to continue. 

3. For some of us, the personal relationships never work well. Despite taking maximum efforts from one's side, the chords 
never strike. Then at some stage, the decision of calling it quits once and for all needs to be taken, instead of dragging this mismatch throughout the life.

These were some of the main examples a normal person face in his / her personal life. Most of the time the "messy moment" which forces us to take that "messy decision" doesn't appear all of sudden. We always get signs for these. We should always look for these signs and should be able to interpret them on timely basis. We should look for the "support groups" around us to get us the help needed. These support groups doesn't necessarily have to be official organizations. They can be our family members, relatives or close friends. These support groups can help us in avoiding taking those emotional based extreme decisions. 

Moving back to original Messi. Here are some of the questions which I had

a.  Would Messi have retired if he had not missed the penalty kick but still Argentina would have lost the final? What caused the major disappointment - The loss in the final or the pain of giving a false start to Argentina?

b. Prior to the match, did he take this decision of quitting the international football in case of loss in final?  Did he take the criticism of not being able to provide the country of glory of the success in the international tournaments so close to his heart? 

Messi may be requested to revert his decision of taking back his retirement from international level. 

Some of us are lucky enough to revert some of these 'messy decisions' taken at those 'messy moments'. But not everyone of us would be lucky enough to get such luxury of reverting some these "messy decisions" in our lives.