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.

Make the Most of it

            Holbrook, Arizona, population: just over 5,000. This is where I have lived most of my life and to be completely honest I truly love it here. It seems to me that recently I have been hearing people complain a lot about Holbrook. “Holbrook is too small!” “There is nothing to do in Holbrook!” “Holbrook is boring!” Yes I know that Holbrook is a small town, but I believe that since it is a small town it gives you a chance to use your imagination to find something to do. You do not have to live in a big town or even spend money to have fun. You just have to make do with what you have.

            Thinking back on all of the fun memories that have had with my friends in Holbrook, there are a few that stick out the most. The one that first comes to mind happened one Saturday night when my sister, Jennifer, Zach and his sister, Kaitlin, and I were all hanging out together. We were all driving around in Kaitlin’s car trying to decide what to do, when we happened to see these two kids walking down the road. Now, I do not want to say names but for the sake of this blog let’s call these two kids Duncan and Corey. These were two guys we knew from school so we thought we would play a little prank on them. Kaitlin drove around the block and stopped maybe half a block behind them. Zach and I then got out and started running towards them screaming. Scared to death, Duncan and Corey took off running and we chased them almost all the way around the block. They ran into an alley and deciding we should not follow them we got back into Kaitlin’s car. Granted Duncan and Corey didn’t think this was that fun, Zach and I had a lot of fun.

            Another fun memory I have happened on another weekend when Zach and I were hanging out. Zach had come upon a funny idea that we could go do. Zach and I went to Safeway and were trying to get people to sign a petition. Only people had a really hard time taking our petition seriously. If you have ever been to Holbrook in the spring you would know that it gets really windy here. So Zach and I thought we would do the town a favor and start a petition to stop the wind. We would explain that with every signature we get, the wind would blow one mile per hour less. Some people had a hard time grasping this and refused to sign but some people just thought that it was worth a shot. All in all it was one of the most fun nights I have had. Seeing how people reacted when we asked them to sign was hilarious.

            Yes, Holbrook is small, but that does not mean you can’t have fun here. How you spend your nights and how much fun you have is completely in your control. If you decide to just sit around and complain then you probably will have a bad time, but if you choose to use your imagination and come up with something to do then you can have fun and dominate every day.

The Bigger Picture

 

 

 

       I feel like to start off this blog I should briefly explain why I named my blog this. I titled my blog "DomiNate Every Day," (just in case you did not see that already). I had a hard time coming up with a title for this blog, so I tried to think of what I want to write about for the next couple months. After drawing a big blank, I tried to think of some advice that I could share, and this is where my title comes from.

 

       This blog is for me just as much as it is for you. I feel like sometimes, in life, we feel like we are constantly being put down, but we need to stop thinking like this. Even though things are down there will always be something good in your life. Those are the things that we need to focus on. So, to help me remember this I decided to create a life motto. I was going to make my life motto "make the most of every day," but that is too cliché. So I thought I would use my creative juices and incorporate my name into it and make it "dominate every day!"

 

       My whole life I have played basketball, and have had to work hard to finally make it onto the varsity basketball team and this season had been going great! I was going out and playing like my team needed me to play and I felt good. Then a week after Christmas we had a tournament in Chinle, it was here that my season took a turn towards the sour side. I played two games there and I got injured. I am not only upset at the fact that I got injured, but I am upset at the type of injury. After going to the doctor I found out that I had a contusion in my quadriceps or in layman's terms, I have a really bad bruise. A bad bruise. That is why I will miss at least six games my senior year.

 

       Now this could be something that I could get really upset and mad about. However, I am not going to focus on the negative. I just need to look at the big picture. Yes I am going to miss six games of my senior year but if I look at my senior year as a whole I see that I got to play a full season of soccer games, still a majority of basketball games, and I will get to go to Disneyland. Looking at it that way makes my senior year sounds pretty good. The world is not going to end because I could not play six games.

 

       This is what is important to remember. When looking at the big picture you will see what is really important in life. Sometimes, in life, we all need to just take a step back, slow down, and look at the bigger picture. When we do this, it really allows us to evaluate our lives and see what is really important.