I had a great tennis career. I have no regrets. But to find peace with yourself, and to finally be with your family - I'm probably the happiest guy in the world.
Interpretation
Finding peace and happiness comes from within and being with loved ones.
In this quote, Bjorn Borg reflects on his successful tennis career but emphasizes that true happiness stems from personal fulfillment and family connections. He suggests that despite professional achievements, it is the emotional contentment and the support of loved ones that lead to genuine joy.
In practice
Use this quote in a speech about prioritizing family over career.
As tennis players, we work and we sacrifice many things. To lose, that's not a happy thing - I mean sure, I was disappointed. You have to come back strong. But to win the last point in a grand slam tournament, that's the most beautiful and most satisfying feeling you can get as a tennis player. It's worth it.
My greatest point is my persistence. I never give up in a match. However down I am, I fight until the last ball. My list of matches shows that I have turned a great many so-called irretrievable defeats into victories.
If we opened our minds to enjoyment, we might find tranquil pleasures spread about us on every side. We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower.
One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them by chance, in a lucky hour, at the world's end somewhere, and hold fast to the days.
What Western society teaches us is that if you get enough money, power, and beautiful people to have sex with, that's going to bring you happiness. That's what every commercial, every magazine, music, movie teaches us. That's a fallacy.
I was trying not to be happy, hopeful. I did not believe I deserved happiness or even hope, if you knew my soul.
Happiness and joy are not the same. For what does the fervent craving for joy mean? It does not mean that we wish at any cost to experience the psychic state of being joyful. We want to have reason for joy, for an unceasing joy that fills us utterly, sweeps all before it, exceeds all measure.
There is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness.
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