Hey Brain
To answer your question on what can i do if my parent or a friend parent fail to do so. The things that i could do is to give them good advice such as be strong, don' t give up, and always remember just because one person give up on you don't mean you don't have some one else there for you. It is fun that you ask that because just on yesterday i was talking to a friend and she was telling me that she is stressed out over all types of things so my advice to her was to be strong and don't give up no matter what is going on in your life. The example that i will try to give is that school come first over everything else and i think i need that example for this pass semester because i started to put sports and girl over school and my grades drop badly and i wasn't happy about that either so now that I'm back on the right track i will get my grade back up. And my uncle always tell me that you are your worst enemy yourself you make the decision and you make the mistake and now I'm getting what he mean when he says that now. My reason for coming to schools is to get a education but have fun when I'm getting my education that is my reason for coming and to become a great man in life who can help the other man become something.
Thanks for writing me back and hope to hear from you again soon but these are some question i have for you. Did you ever have a friend or even you where your parents turn way for a little bit when you was in high school what was your advice to them?
Sincerely, Delmichael Youngblood
1 comment:
Hey Delmichael,
Good to hear back from you so quickly! I'm also happy to hear that you're already such a positive influence on your friends - it's always easy to be someone's friend when everybody is having a good time, but it's most important to be a friend when someone needs advice - maybe if they don't even want to hear it.
I actually have a friend whose father died right around the time we graduated from high school. Kenny is a terrific athlete - probably the best basketball player I've ever played with, and we ran track together, too. It was funny, because I always looked up to him a little bit, because he was a better athlete, and I thought his girlfriend was gorgeous, and he looked up to me because I did pretty well in school and had a lot of other things going for me. He probably would have been a much better sprinter on the track team than a distance runner, but we went out for track together our senior year and I was trying to run the mile, so he ran the mile, too, so we could run together at practice. I think he was intimidated by organized sports and activities at school because he had never felt like he was a great student or anything - as good as he was at basketball, he never tried out for the team in high school, and I think it was because he was worried about having to be responsible for getting good grades and being a leader in school.
Anyway, we became pretty good friends senior year, and his girlfriend and I convinced him to run track so that he would feel more a part of the school and have more of a reason to want to do well. Pretty soon after we graduated, most of our friends went off to college, and he was stuck back at home. His parents were having trouble and his dad was sick, and he wasn't really doing much of anything - I think he was taking one class at community college because he thought he was supposed to, but most of the time he was just heading down to the rec center to hang out until all his friends who were still in high school got done so they could play basketball.
Most of our friends were up at Michigan State, which was farther than where I was in Ann Arbor, so I started inviting him to come up to play ball with us at our rec building at college. My thought was that if I could get him to see what it was like to be around people who were taking school seriously and still having fun, he'd get on that track, too. I think he was bummed out that all of us were on to bigger and better things while he was still back at home, so I'd have him meet me at the library after my classes so that we could study for an hour before we went to play ball. Eventually he started taking more classes on his own and had plans to enroll at MSU, but his dad died and he lost some time and fell off track. By that time we had a bunch of friends trying to motivate him to stay on track and do well in school.
Eventually he got in to Madonna University and even played basketball for them, but he could never stay focused for more than a year at a time, and then he'd drift off to something else - find a job that he thought would be better than school, or try to join a semipro football or basketball league to make money that way. It was frustrating to see, because he's genuinely a smart guy, but just couldn't stay focused - like your uncle said, you're usually your own worst enemy. He ended up finishing school, although it took him a while, and he's doing alright now - has a decent job and just got married. I saw him this summer and could tell that he was pretty appreciative of how we all stayed on him to finish school and do the right things. Even though it took him some time to figure things out, it's great to see that he's happy and to know that he had at least a few friends that were going to stay on him until he got things straightened out.
It sounds like you've already learned what your uncle meant when your grades slipped this last semester - and that's great...it's not a terrible thing to make mistakes, as long as you learn from them. That's actually what school is all about - doing your best and making mistakes so that you can learn from them. The key, like you said, is to have fun with it all, and to not be scared of making mistakes (like I think my friend was). I know Mr. Hughes pretty well, and I'm sure your other teachers are similar - they won't be upset if you make mistakes, but they will be upset if you don't try. Like my dad always told me when he was coaching basketball, you can't score if you don't shoot. If you're scared of getting your shot blocked, you'll never score, but even if you miss, you might get fouled or get an offensive rebound. You just have to take it up strong - in basketball, in school, or in life.
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