The Perfect Attitude I believe in a good attitude, a small, but powerful trait to have. A good attitude can change your day from bad to good, change somebody else’s day from bad to good, or even change somebody's life. Some people could be looking up to you, and you wouldn’t even know it. That should be motivation to have a great attitude even when nobody is watching. Make somebody’s day, give them a reason to look up to you, and even in bad situations, always be positive. I believe that you should never let anybody’s opinion of you, whether it’s how big, how small, , how smart, or dumb you are, don’t let anybody's opinion stop you from having a great attitude and doing what you love. My story of setbacks all started when I came into my freshman year of high school football. I hear it all the time, “that kid is too small” and “You can’t play football, kid, you’re going to get killed” and of course the classic, “Why do you even play? you’re too small to go anywhere with football!” I’ll admit it, I let the comments get the best of me, and started believing that I wouldn’t play a lot, I wouldn’t go anywhere in sports, and that i'm too small for contact sports. Well, mid-season of my freshman year, our quarterback, the backbone of our team, got pulled up to varsity. Guess who was the backup? yeah, thats right, yours truly. I had to step up and be the quarterback for our JV team. 5’7” 120 lbs kid taking over and running our offense, all the comments started coming back to put somebody else in because I was too small. That didn’t stop me. I believe that this happened for a reason. There was a reason I got this opportunity, maybe by chance, maybe by luck. The first game as quarterback was very rough, we lost by a lot. Even my teammates were losing faith in me and my abilities. A few more games went on and to be honest, they didn’t get much better. We kept losing and my teammates didn’t think I was the guy for the job. Then it happened. I was on kick return, I went to go block for the guy who was running the ball, and got blindsided. My knee felt like it blew out of place, I was in excruciating pain and I had no idea what to do. So I kept playing, it’s just a little bruised right? little did I know i’d pay for that decision later. I believe that your attitude has a direct effect on how you do everything. When I had that injury, my attitude was over all good, because I didn’t care that I was hurt I just wanted to play! After that season I was excited to play quarterback next year as well, because i put so much work and effort into trying to be a better quarterback. This is where I pay for my decision to play the previous year. Fourth of july weekend, only weeks until the kick off of the 2015-16 football season! I couldn’t be happier! My friends and I were camping and having a great time, so we decided to go boating that day! why not, right? last couple weeks of summer before football, let's have some real fun! So my family and the others went out onto the sandbar, and towards the back of the boat the water was 6 feet deep, but towards the front, little did i know, was only 3 feet deep. One by one, the kids jump off the boat like frogs into a pond. so I decided to hop in too, but off the front of the boat. The water was so murky i couldn’t even see the sand as it lay on the bottom of the lake. As I leaped in expecting to plunge deep into the cool water, my expectations were shattered as I hit the bottom much sooner than I expected. An instant shock with through the back of my right knee, the same knee I had hurt before, but this time, much worse. The swelling came right on cue, and the ice started getting packed down on my knee. We drove the boat back, and from there the car waited on shore for me. The ride to the hospital wasn’t fun at all. I didn’t have a very good attitude, i just wanted to close off the world and be okay. I knew something wasn’t right. I believe that whenever you get bad news, you feel like your whole world just crumbles beneath your feet. “It appears you may have torn your hamstring Jake. Come in for an MRI in about a week and we’ll re-evaluate you, but for now it looks like you’ll be on crutches for a while. Absolutely no football.” Wait, what? did I just hear that right? no football, are you kidding me? I’ll admit it, right there in that moment my attitude was at a 0. I was so mad, and disappointed in myself. They told me if I would have decided to dive head first, I would have been dead instantly. For the next few weeks, I watched my teammates playing football, laughing, and having fun. What was I doing? sitting on the sidelines feeling bad for myself. In that moment I said to myself, screw this, i’m playing this season. I started walking again and started working on my knee a lot, lifting weights and just focusing on basically self-rehabbing. I worked so hard to get back to normal, i’m still not 100% but i suited up for our first game, and in face every single game and practice and even started. 3 games in, our quarterback went down and I stepped up yet again and I felt like I did a lot better than ever before. When I started working my knee out, yeah it hurt, but I felt like sitting out would have hurt me more, and my attitude to get back into the game was at a 100. I believe that if i've learned one thing from this terrible experience, it's that you can’t feel sorry for yourself and mope around. Get up, and get after it. A bad attitude isn’t going to get you anywhere. Put your big boy pants on and man up. Face your problems at full throttle, and run through them. I think I hurt myself more than my knee hurt me, because of my poor attitude. Never again will I have a bad attitude towards something I know I can come back from. A good attitude is the key to success, and when that mindset, i’ll always be successful.
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January 2016
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