If you last to tell your life story, how would you go about it? Would you be determined to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Most people don't. Perhaps Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions is an exception. He reveals moments of humiliation he needn't have.

Cyril Connolly, famous writer of the last generation, said: "When I look back, all I can see is embarrassment, humiliation, cul de sacs, broken affairs, promises not kept and roads not taken. The sum of such moments is the story of my life." That is the ultimate in self-pity and it wasn't true. Connolly had great moments: he had some books published that were deemed powerful but in moments of depression you can ignore such achievements.

In my own life there have been failures, betrayals by some friends and projects abandoned and so in moments of depression it could be looked on as a disaster. And yet I think of what Thomas Hardy said: "At the graveside of even the humblest man you see his life as dramatic." In my own sea of depression there are two islands of certainty that will always sustain me.

One is the bog: working there at about 12, I fell in love with it. And if you love something, you will become good at it. By 20, I was versed in all the skills and had imbibed all the knowledge, some of which was rubbish, that was replaced with wisdom of my own. I could declare myself a master Bogman with First Class Honours. This is one of my gold medals and will last me forever.

My other island of certainty was fishing. Salmon fishermen look on themselves as the elite but my belief is salmon fishing is more work than play. You are all day holding a heavy rod that gets heavier as time goes by. And you are often confined to a moderate space.

In fishing for trout you might travel five miles upstream and five miles down. And you had to work hard. As my great friend Danny Horan used to say: "You must know what the fish are thinking."

There is an added benefit. Your mind is free except for the concentration needed. You are reminded of Judy Garland singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow: "Where troubles melt like lemon drops away above the chimney tops."

There is another added benefit: sometimes when you are fishing bait as distinct from fly, you may remain standing for about half an hour in the same place. The little birds think that you are a tree and they go about their business blissfully unconscious of your presence.

Thus you may see the goldcrest, the smallest bird in these islands. He is so small that at 50 yards you could mistake him for a butterfly.

In our area a generation ago there was one rod in almost every house and sometimes two or three. There could never be a champion with such competition but it was reputed that I was one of the best. It was great to feel you belonged to a brotherhood that went back for generations.

When you read Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler, you will find some of the language hasn't changed over a few hundred years. A man who hasn't started fishing for the season says to Izaak "I haven't wet a line yet." The same words are often heard from my neighbours.

If somebody asks me about achievements in my life, my reply would mention being good in the bog and on the river. It seems a poor summary for a lifetime. Being engaged in politics for most of my life, there were triumphs and failures but there could be no ultimate success.

I was a teacher for many years but it is a strange profession. Let us say that you had a class of 15 girls for the Leaving, some of whom did very well and some of whom did fairly well but one failed. You would say to yourself that the girl's failure was due to you and those who did well would have succeeded anyway.

Then there was rugby but that is a game in which you will never reach any confidence in your ability. Some days you feel you should be on the Irish team and on other days you believe you are lucky to hold your place with the local club.

Writing is my profession but it isn't easy to judge the worth of your work. And then there is the song that says The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter. Too well I know. There were affairs that didn't last very long and there were affairs that hardly got even started and I came to know the truth of an old Dutch song:

"And among all the mourners who grieve

Why should I a mourner be?

For I meant nothing to her

But she meant the whole world to me"

Sherwood Anderson, the father of American writing, used to say: "We all need our lovers but the world has no great scheme for providing them." In most of our lives this area is littered with that little tormenter "if only". There are the ships that pass in the night and you say to yourself: "If only I had the courage, one of those ships might have stayed on shore."

And so out of all the blunders and the own goals and the bad roads taken and the good roads ignored and the mantras that failed, you try to pick out your two islands of certainty that will stay with you in the depths of depression. And you sum up by saying: "I have two gold medals that no one can take from me. One was gained in the bog and the other on the river."

And I haven't forgotten those ships that pass in the day.

Fogra: Best wishes go to all the brave and talented people who have set their sights on the Olympics, including my friends Colin Costello and David Campbell.

- Con Houlihan