Goals

                I remember last year in Mr. Long’s class he would make us write goals every week. He would tell us to make goals that are for a short amount of time or goals that we want to accomplish the next week. He would have us write a medium goal, something that we wanted to accomplish by mid-term or by the end of the nine weeks. Lastly, he would make us write a long-term goal. Not to be mean but I thought this was the dumbest assignment in the world. Every week he would tell us to pull out our goal list and then we would have to report on how we did on the short term goal, and then we would have to report on how we're progressing towards the other goals. Every week I would write some lame goal that I knew I would accomplish with little to no effort. Sadly, I continued to do this for most of the year and did not write a serious goal.

                However, now that I am a mature senior, goals are becoming more important to me. May is coming quite quickly. Before I know it I am going to be graduated and then it is completely up to me how I make my life and quite frankly, if I do not have goals then I am not going anywhere.

                Mr. Long always told us that if you do not write the goal down, then it does not count as a goal and you are less likely to accomplish it. That is what I need to work on. I have goals in my head that I want to accomplish but I need to take those goals and put them on paper. One of the best feelings you can have is when you accomplish a long-term goal. Ever since I turned twelve years old my dad always told me that I am going to be an Eagle Scout. This became one of my goals that I wanted to accomplish.

                Just in case you did not know you can only obtain your Eagle Scout award between the ages of twelve and eighteen. Well, I turned eighteen on the sixteenth of this month and I still was not an Eagle Scout on the first of this month. So I had to make a mad dash and hurry and finish all of the requirements. After a few stressful weeks and a ton of phone calls I finally achieved my goal and received my Eagle award on the tenth of this month. Six days before my birthday!

                As seniors, we are ultimately in charge of what becomes of our lives. I know that goals seem really lame and seem less important than other things that we have going on in our lives, but I honestly believe that they are important. Mr. Long used to always tell us that if we write our goals down and hang them somewhere we see it every day then we will be more inclined to one day accomplish that goal.

Price of Tea in China

                Yesterday, while I was making a pizza at work, I started to think of what I could write my blog on this week. I originally thought that I could write about my work and how we need to work hard for our money, but then I realized that sounds pretty boring.  So, I did what anyone else would do. I asked one of my coworkers what to write about. After explaining that it has to have some educational value to it he said that I should write about the price of tea in China. So here we go. As you all know tea is very popular in China so prices are normally expensive. The current price is ¥ 1.40, which converts to some amount in U.S. dollars. No I am just kidding but at least now you know.

                What I really want to talk about are friendships. It is kind of interesting to me to see all different types of friendships we have. We have those friends that we used to be best friends with, but at some point in time, we fall apart and go our separate ways. We have work friends; there to make work more enjoyable. Then we have those close friends that we can tell anything and don’t have to hide anything.

                As children, it seems like you could just walk right up to some kid that you have never met before. You will share your toy and they will share theirs and then all of the sudden you guys are best friends.  However, as you get older, friendships seem harder to get. You and your first friends start to drift apart and that leads you to finding new friends.  

                I am about to share something with you that I am sure you do not know, but high school is full of drama. It has always been interesting to me that one day two people can be best friends, always together. Then a week or so later you see them talking behind each other’s backs and are just mean. How could you all of the sudden hate someone that a week earlier you honestly cared about?

This led me to think about how we make friends. I first thought of my fellow coworker.  Starting out at Mr. G’s, I was the only worker from Holbrook. So walking in I can honestly say that I did not know anyone I was working with. So being a little bit intimidated, I just kept to myself for the first couple weeks. After becoming more comfortable, I started to come out of my shell and started to talk more. I quickly became friends with a couple of guys there and it makes work a lot more fun.

The great thing about dominating every day is that, you do not have to do it by yourself. Make new friends, keep those friends, and take them with you on your mission to pure domination.

Coaching

                The sound of shoes squeaking on the court. The smell of popcorn in the air. The chants and screams of a packed gym. Normally I would be saying that this is the type of environment that I love to play in, which it is. However, I have found out that this is pretty sweet environment to coach in. For about the past four years my basketball coach, Delmar, has asked me to help him with his youth basketball league. When I first started out, I would only keep score. Delmar slowly let me start to referee basketball games and I thought that was the best thing to do.

                This year, however, Delmar’s wife Jme was telling me that they were short a couple coaches for the third through fifth grade age group and she asked if I would be interested in coaching a team. Of course, I agreed to it. After recruiting Zach as an assistant coach, we got out roster and headed to our first practice. We both showed up early not knowing what to expect from our team. As we start doing some warm up drills we were pretty quick to find out who on our team knew what they were doing and who would need some extra attention. As practice continues on we discover just how good our team is. We come to find out that we might have the best player in our age group. This one player, who we call Bubba, is crazy good. He can dribble between the legs and behind the back, make tough passes, and shoot perfect swishes.

                As you can probably guess, Zach and I were pretty excited to have Bubba on our team and we could not wait until our first game two weeks later.  However, a week later, at practice, Bubba came up to us with a sad look on his face. He told us that he could not be at our game that week because he was going out of town.  I am not even going to lie to you guys; this really scared Zach and I. Bubba was the player that got everyone to score, so we were worried how we would do without him. However, everything turned out good. All of the rest of our players stepped up and we won by six.

                My team of third through sixth graders taught me a lesson that day. Yes, they knew that it would be hard to win without Bubba, but they never gave up. They all believed that if they each did the best they could that we would win. I, on the other hand, was not as optimistic. This team of little kids taught me that you can never give up. You just need to believe in yourself and that you can accomplish all your goals and then you have to go out there and work your hardest, then will you reach your goal.

A Reason to Win

 

               This past week there has been one thing that is mentioned every time I turn on the T.V., and that is the Super Bowl. Granted that is probably because I only watch ESPN. Anyways, this last week, while I was trying to decide what to write this blog about,  I saw this little segment on a guy named Matthew Jeffers, on ESPN, and after watching, my eyes were opened and it made me really think about life. So, I thought I would share his story with you.

                Matthew Jeffers is a die-hard Baltimore Ravens fan. Mid-season this year, the Ravens were in a slump and just lost three games in a row. So Matthew decided to write an email titled, “A Reason to Win” to the head coach, John Harbaugh. His email had such a strong message that the John went and sent it out to his whole team and immediately got positive feedback.  In his letter he mentions that he suffers from skeletal dysplasia. He is twenty one years old and stands at only four foot two.  He then tells us of his mother. His mother recently got diagnosed with a stage four brain tumor and might be going into hospice care. Then he goes and asks you one simple question, “So you tell me, is life fair?”

                Now I want you to think about your life. I want you to think about the things you do not like about it, the things you wish you would change, and even the things you enjoy, and ask yourself, is life really fair? Everyone, at one point or another, will have hardships in their lives, but what would you say in these hard times?  I want to share with you what Matthews strongest comment, that stuck to me the most, was, “the only disability in life is a bad attitude. A positive attitude is the most powerful combatant to life’s misfortunes.”  Here is a man with a huge disability telling us that all you need is a positive attitude.

                When I happened upon this video, it really impressed me. Here is a young twenty one year old man whose life is full of hardships, yet he has a great attitude towards life. This is exactly what my blog is all about. He could have spent his time moping around being sad for himself but he didn’t! He just took the situation he was dealt and he made it positive. He chose to dominate every day. This is a lesson that we could all learn from. Life is not fair. It never has been and it never will be. So what are you going to do about it? Are you going to let life walk all over you and put you down? Or are you going to take hold of your life and make the most of it with a positive attitude? The choice is yours.