“I’ll be 70 next year. And I’m not here to impress anyone. I’ve been the champion. I’ve been the villain. I’ve had gold around my waist and nothing in my soul.
Now? I just want peace. Everything else is noise.”
I grew up where love was tough and fists were currency.
I didn’t learn kindness — I learned survival.
By 13, I had been arrested 38 times. By 20, I was the youngest heavyweight champion in history.
They called me “Iron Mike” — like I wasn’t supposed to bleed.
I had money, fame, mansions, tigers, private jets… But I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t breathe.
The world saw knockouts.
I saw ghosts.
At 40, I started asking better questions. Not “how do I win?”
But “why was I always fighting in the first place?”
And the truth?
I wasn’t fighting the other guy.
I was fighting myself. My fear. My father’s silence. My mother’s pain. My own shame.
Now, at nearly 70, I’m not chasing anything.
I grow mushrooms.
I hug my pigeons.
I walk barefoot on grass and cry sometimes for no reason at all.
I talk more about forgiveness than uppercuts.
I don’t need the belt. I don’t need the roar of a crowd.
I just want to eat good fruit, tell the truth, and die knowing I broke the cycle.
If you want to know what greatness is — it’s not dominance. It’s healing.
It’s walking away from the thing that used to destroy you — and choosing not to destroy others with it.
— Mike Tyson
#f