MY PHILOSOPHY

            What is philosophy? Well that just depends on who you ask. Looking around the internet I also found many different definitions. One from dictionary.com defined philosophy as “the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct.” That may be the technical definition for it but that holds nothing to an individual’s own personal definition of philosophy. And just because each person has their own philosophy doesn’t mean that it isn’t influenced or changed by someone else’s philosophy or even past experiences. Whether it is a teacher, coach, best friend or even losing the big game, other people and events have a great impact on them whether they know it or not.
            My philosophy is that everything happens for a reason but no matter what happens I need to remember to keep and positive attitude and remember why I am doing the things I do, for fun. I feel that always having a positive attitude makes me work harder and in turn, do better. From my philosophy, I have to learn to accept the things I can’t change, learn from my experiences whether good or bad, and get over it. It took me a while, but when I finally figured out that I need to learn to accept things that happen, I will be able to move on with my life and hopefully become a better person.
            For me, many people have influenced me and my philosophy. A big one of course is my parents; just by what they have taught me growing up I feel that I have a pretty good grasp on what is right and wrong. Now that doesn’t mean I do everything perfectly because everyone has different ideas of what perfect is. Another great influence on my philosophy has been my academics and athletics. I'm not the smartest or most athletic person there is, but I simply do the best I can and if something doesn’t turn out the way I would have liked, I take that experience, learn from it, and use it to make myself a better person.
            One great example of this for me is high jump. I have been high jumping since the 7th grade and it is one of my favorite things to do. But just because I enjoy it doesn’t mean I'm the greatest, I do it because, for me, it’s fun and exciting, especially when I reach a new height. It took me a long time to get to where I am today. All through high school I was pretty good, but knew I could do better and by my senior year I had improved greatly. Now I am on the track team here at Wesleyan where at the beginning of the year I was doing better at my first two meets then I have ever done. But at my third meet I didn’t make opening height and was angry and disappointed at myself. For the next four meets, to me, I didn’t do as well as I thought I should have and just kept getting more and more frustrated. By the sixth meet had a negative attitude towards everything and because of that, I was still doing terrible. It took a talk from my older brother to tell me that he had noticed that I have had a bad attitude about my jumping and that I was losing the competition in my mind before it even started. He told me that I need to get over those past meets and reminded me of why I love to high jump, not to win, but to have fun and enjoy the experience whether I did well or not.
            From that point on I did realize I had a bad attitude and it needed to be fixed. By conference time, I had put all the negative thoughts out of my head and just remembered to have fun and be positive win or lose. And because of that, I placed at the conference track meet and am jumping the heights I was at the beginning of the year. I have taken that experience, though bad, and learned from it and now every time I don’t do as well as I would like jumping, I just remind myself of what I am doing it for…fun.
            My philosophy ties into my practice because I will be seeing a lot of athletes that are not at there best. Whether they are injured and aren’t able to play, they aren’t doing as well as they would like, or maybe just feeling down in general; I feel that my philosophy will help them to cope with their problems. Just because you’re out for a couple of games because of a torn ACL or you haven’t been doing your best, doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world. They need to look at it like a test of their will and work hard, become stronger, and compete with the idea that bad things do happen, but for every bad thing, there are good things that happen along with it. And even though the good thing may not be apparent, they just need to stay positive, learn from the experience, get over it, and move on knowing that they have become a better person because if it.

(2000). Definition for Philosophy. Retrieved February 25, 2007, from Dictionary.com Web site:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/philosophy