Optimism+SpeechBG15

=__How my optimism will help me press on to greater things in the future.__=

Optimism is important to remember all through life. Instead of thinking of the glass half-empty, think of it half-full. This is super important because it will allow you to take the best of every situation, even bad ones, and make it into something better. I am an especially optimistic person, and I showed it in three different times over the past two years. They are when my football team, the Carrollwood Hurricanes, played against the Fish Hawk Wolfpack, my horrid basketball season last year, and the first time I ever played tackle football. All of these are different ways that optimism has helped me in the past, and taught me a lesson on how to use it in the future.

First, as a said earlier, is the football game against the Wolfpack. The game started out as usual. Both teams were standing on the sidelines waiting for the team captains with the results of the coin toss. We won and differed, which means we started with the ball second half. The game started normally with both teams driving the ball trying to score. I scored for our team, and we converted the extra point making it seven to zero. Then they scored because I was playing too timidly on defense, and coach noticed it too. He was yelling at me to get angry and tackle someone. So, I got my act together, but they still managed to be up two scores at half-time. I was steaming, and so was the rest of the team. So as usual coach calls us over and gives us the halftime speech. He said this was our last home game, and we should all take pride in it.

So, we started off with them kicking the ball off to us, and I play kick-off returner. They kicked it off and I fumbled the kickoff, but I was able to pick it up and start running. I saw a hole in the middle of all the clashing and hitting between the two teams and ran into it. I came out unscathed, and now there was nothing stopping me from scoring a touchdown. I scored and that only put us down by one touchdown! After all the celebrating, my team kicked off to the Wolfpack, and they eventually fumbled the ball about four plays into their drive. We recovered the fumble and started to drive down the field, but there were about two minutes left on the clock. We ended up driving past the fifty yard-line, but the clock ran out before we could score. Although all that hard work ended up in a loss, the point of the story is never give up and keep your head held high. This will help me press on to greater things in life because as long as I see the good in a situation, no matter the circumstances, nothing will bring me to give up. I'll either achieve my goals or come pretty close.

Second, I want to tell you about the horrid season of basketball my team had to endure last year. Last year, the 2013-2014 season, we went zero and 14. That means we won zero games and lost 14. Although we lost of all out games, the team played with their heart and soul. That is, until, the playoffs started. We were playing St. Joseph's. The regular season game against them was one of the tightest games of the season. We were only down 5-10 points the entire game. Then their best shooter couldn't stop making three pointers, and that put us down by a lot of points. We lost that game but were determined to come out with a win. Would you look at that, we beat them. It only took 14 games, but we finally came out with a win, and we did it when we mattered most. Although we lost to St. Lawrence the game after, that feeling after that win was amazing. What I learned from my optimism in this event was to work hard and good things almost always follow. You can even incorporate the lesson from my first story. Never give up.

Finally, last but not least, the first season I played tackle football. Since it was my first time playing, I didn't realize how badly my team was organized, or at least I thought so. The entire offense was based off one person, Jordan Mcloud, and that was because his brother, Ray Ray, was an all-star running back that played at Sickles High School. They had me playing at a position that I was horrible at, and they didn't realize it until the end of the season. It was all madness, and we only came out with 4 or 5 wins. Even though I completely dreaded that entire season I played another season and ended up one of, if not, the top scorer on the team. This shows that football started off horrid, I tried again and it was great. I thank my optimism for this because without it I probably would've not tried tackle football again.

Optimism is like a energy drink, except it's for your soul and not your body. It allows you to see the good and things and not just see the bad. It boosts you soul and motivates you to press onto greater things, for example, the three stories that were mentioned in my speech. The lessons learned from those events will stay with me my entire life, and will ultimately teach me how to press onto greater things that will brighten my future.