Why am I here? - a story from Padua, Italy

10:50AM, Cittadella (Padua)

I am sitting in my parents' house writing down my thoughts.

You ask why?

I broke my right hand 2 weeks ago and the world stopped – the world stopped moving for me just like that!

I am a physiotherapist and osteopath; my hands give me a role in this world, and in my community. Up to now, I have been working in a private clinic, and more recently I’ve started a new job with a Professional Football Team (SSD Cittadella Women). Only 3 weeks ago in fact!

 Now I am upset because I have my right arm in a cast. On reflection, something I’ve learned as to the importance of on this TLP journey…the first few days I was devastated and upset…staying on the couch, looking at the cast, and thinking about how everything stopped from day to night. Just like that! Why? I thought about everything I’ve learned over the last year from mentors and friends on ‘The Learning Physiotherapist’ platform and in ‘The Leadership Bunker’ meetings. I realise I must transform this moment of adversity into an opportunity. It can be a gift, in disguise.

I started from the bottom thinking about why I am a physiotherapist and osteopath. Why did I choose this path? It’s a big question, why, as Jim Rohn says. I was 6 years old, and I was being bullied every day at school. So much so, that my mum was forced to come to my school to sit down next to me in the classroom for several months. I was young with no friends. In my 2nd year, fortunately, I changed classroom and I found true friends. I can say true because we’re still friends after 21 years; we’re spending all our life together. I wasn’t good at school - but…I was good at basketball, and I loved the game. However, as often happens to ballers, at 13 years old, I had a bad injury on my right ankle…and I discovered the role of the physiotherapist…and I fell in love with it.

‘Willing to always go for it and help others’

Nobody gave me chance to become a physio because, as I said, I wasn’t excelling academically and to go to university in Italy you have to pass a barrage of examinations. Thousands of people - five to six thousand to be more exact - for 90 university places (University of Padua). That’s pretty competitive, right?

The first year I failed…

then I started studying for the next year.

And I passed!

I choose to do what I love. I can say working as a physiotherapist is a passion more than a job. The day after my graduation I started osteopathy. I found that helping people makes me feel better. As my friends saved me when I came from a bad first year at school, now I help people to feel and live better with their body, their family, and in their entire life. I think that changed me deeply, and I found my path. I’m on my journey and living my life. Now, something went wrong for a while, and that’s why I’m here feeling bad for a fracture of my right hand, my dominant hand for everything.

And You?

Why are You where You are?

Think about it.

Let me know.

A Learning Physiotherapist,

Paolo Policastri