25

25 The words that encouraged me

振り返るな　後ろに明日はないから（ Don’t look back. There isn’t tomorrow in the past. ） encouraged me. They are the words of Arashi’s song. I have been listening to their songs since I was a junior high school student. This Arashi’s song is the first song that I listened to. Here is my story.

One day, our junior high school held a class match. It was our final class match at the junior high school so all the students in my class wanted to win the first prize. We practiced hard every day. Our plays made progress day by day. I played volleyball. I can’t play volleyball very well so I was afraid of making mistakes. In the final match, Ⅰ failed so my team lost the game and missed the first prize. We all cried and I said “I’m sorry.” to other members. Then one friend who is Arashi’s fan walked up to me and told me these words. She said “We practiced every day. All members tried hard this game. And all members can enjoy this game.” My friends and I got back smiles again and hugged each other. As soon as I got home, I listened to a song which my friend told me.

After I listened to the song, I got power from Arashi. Since then, I am not afraid of making mistakes and decided to stop thinking “I want to return again.” I’m thankful for my friend and Arashi. It is important to regret. We can learn our bad points through our failure. But I think it is more important to recover. Maybe, our lives have a lot of regrets. We can’t change the things that happened in the past, but we can change the things that will happen in the future. When you regret, I want you to recall these words.