Alessandro Ossola: “Athletics has given me so much happiness, now I help others.”
“To be happy you just need to dream… five minutes at a time”
Alessandro Ossola, Paralympic athlete and Sky testimonial for inclusion, participated today in the panel “The’goal of life” as part of Sky Inclusion Days. Below is an excerpt of his speech at the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan.
"I had a very normal life, like that of many others, then on August 29, 2015, I had a bad accident, where unfortunately è I missed my wife and my left leg è was very damaged. Happiness è è like a cake, which has many ingredients, which are the goals. Athletics has given me so much in terms of goals, it is you against yourself, you have to do more and more, improve yourself. It gives you so much happiness because there’è so much sacrifice. This happiness I’ve also seen it in the eyes of the coaches, who have devoted time to me. But there’è is not only sport, I am a lucky guy because’é I have a family that loves me, a girlfriend that I love. These are things that help us to be happy".
"I would like to share with you the pleasure and desire to seek happiness; in’helping others: when you help someone you are happy too, è a positive chain. We have built an’association, “Bionic peolple” a positive name, we are all a bit’ bionic. There are so many boys and girls, all with great diversity. One thing that excites me and makes me happy è to see these people growing with me. How can this not give me happiness? It has given me so much of it. Those who know me know that I have a hard time getting excited after my accident. I can no longer cry. But I assure you that when I see the kids playing sports, sharing their story… inside I feel incredible emotions, I feel felicityà".
"Happinessà è a cake made of many ingredients, but there’è some secret. The secret may be not to be happy only when we have the spotlight. The danger è that sometimes the spotlight goes out, we cannot have a spotlight life. It can è be nice to be on a stage, but then what happens when you get off? Can you be happy when you are off stage?
"I want to tell you about a project called “Inclusive Padel Tour”: è a project where we play padel, together, boys and girls with and without disabilitiesà. Here the protagonist always changes, like the spotlight, becauseé the same person does not always win. The staff who make this event possible work behind the scenes, they never have the spotlight. Even here at Sky, there are so many people working behind the scenes, without all of them this would not exist and è crazy. Soì it also happens in our staff".
"When I was little I used to ask my mother, who would come to wake me up for school, to let me have another 5 minutes. Work, let’s work on these 5 minutes, becauseé to be happy you only need to dream 5 minutes at a time, small dreams that then become bigger".
The program updated in real time and all the information to participate in the’event and follow the debates live, are available at inclusiondays.sky.it.
