May 26, 2022.

Over the past 24 years, I graduated from my alma mater, Yokohama City Higashi High School.

I had always wanted to give a lecture at my alma mater someday.

Finally, it became a reality.

I entered high school 27 years ago in April 1995.

I had been in a wheelchair since junior high school, and I had lost my sense of self and had withdrawn into a shell.

I was in agony, not having the courage to take the next step and not being able to express my thoughts and feelings.

I had friends in junior high and high school, but I was an empty person with my soul missing.

In 1997, I discovered electric wheelchair soccer, and the time that had stopped began to move.

When he graduated from high school in March 1998, he had already begun to look forward and walk in his own way.

Self-identity is the self that has a rebellious spirit that challenges itself with a voracious appetite and a willingness to work hard to accumulate toward a single goal.

I graduated from high school, but the act of earning a degree was only the end.

A half-hearted graduation that leaves something unexplained

Such a self returned to his alma mater after studying abroad in the U.S. and having a spectacular experience

I selflessly shared my experiences and beliefs at a lecture for first-year students.

During the Q&A session in the latter half of the lecture, many students asked me many questions.

One student asked me

If you could choose between a life with a disability and a life without a disability, which would you choose?

In response to that question, I said, "If I could not have the sensitivity I have cultivated today, I would choose the same life. Because, like an adventurer who climbs a mountain risking his life, I always want to feel alive, so I end up seeking more difficult circumstances."

I'm not trying to be bossy, but I've been blessed with many wonderful encounters that I wouldn't have met if I hadn't been in the circumstances I'm in now.

I can't imagine my life without knowing those people.

Through this unforgettable lecture, I felt like I had finally graduated after 24 years in the true sense of the word, mentally.

I wanted to tell my mother, who fully supported me in high school, how I felt before anyone else

I am the person I am today because of who I was that day.

I often hear the phrase, "Nothing in life is wasted.

It was a day when I honestly felt that way.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)