Overcoming Obstacles

“If you're trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I've had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it (Michael Jordan).” My life has been all about overcoming failure and just getting over obstacles no matter the difficulty. “It’s not how many times you fall that matters; it’s how many times you get up.” This quote sums up my life and how I have always been able to gain some sort of knowledge from every failure experience. I am from New Orleans, the city that is constantly being faced with overwhelming obstacles but we are a very resilient. I’ve always had an optimistic view on life and I believe it is because of how I was raised
as well as the place I was raised in. Life is something that we must value and make the most of each and every day.
Failure comes with life and it’s something that we need in order to become better people in all aspects of our life. Failure teaches us life lessons that will help to shape us into better people so that in the future we don’t make the same mistakes, thus setting us up for more success. A time when I experienced failure in my life is when I was in the 7th grade. My favorite thing to do is play basketball because it’s a time when I can just have fun and not have to worry about anything else; it’s like breathing to me. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without basketball. When I was in the 7th grade I’d say I was a fairly good player and I was just improving each and every day. That was until I started playing for this certain coach. The coach didn’t like me because of my hair at the time and he believed that my hair was “raggedy,” so he benched me and was constantly telling me I wasn’t good enough to play basketball with these other kids. At that moment I had went from being a good player with all the confidence in the world to a mediocre player with very little confidence. I was hardly playing in our games if at
all. One has to remember my love for the game and how I was actually without it now . In my book I had failed because I let someone else come into my life and practically ruin it and I sat there and couldn’t do much of anything about it. During this time of me riding the bench for most of the games barely getting any playing time I realized some things that apply to life in general. Those things are to never give up, pursue your dreams, and to not let anything stand in between you and success. During that time I never gave up because I knew that I would be going against everything I stand for. It was not about how hard I had fell but how I was mentally strong and bounced back. The whole situation ended up being a learning experience that would help me with future situations like the the current process of trying to get into a good college for free. My ambition is to be able to play basketball professionally one day. This process all starts with being able to get a basketball scholarship to a college. I haven’t yet reached this goal but i’m not going to give up because in the end I know that i’ll end up achieving my goal. This quality of mine was developed after a time that I had failed and responded in a positive way. Now that it is crunch time and my back is against the wall I believe that this is the best time to use the life lessons that we learn from our different experiences and incorporate them into something useful so that in the end we really continue to always gain knowledge and nothing is wasted.