Carpe Diem

Everyday each of us has a mission, or missions given to us by God to perform. It is our responsibility to seek them out, to perform these missions and to maybe make the world a little bit better each day, make someones life a little brighter, and maybe, just maybe, help change a life. That's what I think Carpe Diem means, it's not to go out and party, it's not to just do whatever you want, it's to seize the day, make the most of it, and this means performing those little missions we all have, touching peoples lives, and bettering the world, one step, one person at a time.

Track Update

So I haven't posted for a really really long time so I decided to do a little update on how our track team is doing. We've had two meets so far, the first one at Brighton against Brighton and Skyline. It was a good meet for us and we pretty much destroyed Brighton, and beat Skyline pretty handily! Our next meet was a home meet against Judge Memorial and Copper Hills. This meet was a little harder on us because pretty much our whole distance team was sick and Judge had some amazing sprinters, but I'm pretty sure we still pulled off a pretty convincing win! Then we had our six hour run fundraiser. It was pretty fun and we ended up actually playing football and basketball for the majority of the six hours! So the track team is looking pretty good and we're looking forward to getting a healthy team back, particularly in distance. Right now I'm the only fully healthy varsity runner from Cross! Luckily both Jason and Kevin Lynch are coming back and should be full health by Wednesday's meet against Jordan! So it's turning out to be a good year so far and we're looking forward to competing for another region championship! Plus I'm really hoping to qualify for state in the 800, 1600, and 3200! So there's a quick track update, come support on Wednesday at Jordan!

Ah, sweet nostalgia

My mom found this picture today, and ah, what good memories it brings back, I can remember it all like it was yesterday. It was six years ago, Brad and I were debate partners in the fifth grade in Mrs. Sudbury's class. Frankly put, we dominated the house! At the school competition we went 3-0 beating out a lot of the sixth graders to move on to... THE REGION COMPETITION! We were so excited, and as you can see quite serious about the whole deal. I insisted that we both wear ties and be as professional as possible, I thought we were really grown up. So we trekked off to the region competition, I think that it was actually at Alta High School. There we assembled our binders and notecards of hard earned knowledge and studied up on our speeches ready to conquer our debating foes! As you can see good old Brad is there practicing his speech in that very picture! ha ha I even remember getting that water bottle that's sitting there next to me! Then we headed off to our three debates, we went 1-2, we didn't go on, but it was still a party! I specifically remember one debate, we were facing these two girls that were, frankly put, liars! Everytime they got up to speak their rebuttals for our arguments were all lies, they said that we hadn't given any sources, which we had, and that we didn't know what we were talking about, which we did. It got me rather riled up and I started talking to Brad, about how big of liars they were and acting rather unprofessional during their speeches. I'm pretty sure that lost us the debate, even though we were better debaters, it was rather sad, sorry Brad! Still it was a good time, me and Brad made a good team and it was a real party! Unfortunately the next year they didn't let us be partners again but I went 3-0 at school, but for some reason I didn't go on, Brad did though, and that was pretty much the end of my official debating career, though in classes I have done some debating as well. So there you go, a little adventure from my elementary school days, there were a lot of them, maybe sometime later I'll give you a little post about my favorite elementary school game, Ding Ball! Oh, and Paige, maybe I will do mock trial, this little picture has reminded me how much I really did enjoy debate, though now I probably wouldn't be too good, it has been like five years! And check out Brad's post on elementary school and our little adventure!

Reflections and other pictures

My little brother, it's just a teensy bit edited, a little darkening.

This is my older sister


Tiny bit of darkening

It's been a really long time since I've taken any pictures, so here are some I took yesterday and today. (unedited unless otherwise noted)

Dedication

What is dedication? Webster defines dedication as Self-Sacrificing devotion. When we dedicate ourselves we give ourselves to something, to a cause, to a purpose, to a team. It's a quality that I look for in people, something that I value highly. It means that they're willing to sacrifice themselves for something greater. Running requires a high level of dedication, in order to run to your peak performance you essentially have to run all year long. You have to run through the long winter with very little satisfaction, there's no speed work, so you rarely get any faster, and your times in general remain the same. You run indoors on the hard linoleum day in and day out always having to keep repeating to yourself that it's for the spring and for the fall. Then you have track where you train every day, through rain, snow, and wind, weather is of no importance, because you train to win, there's no allowances for weather, or personal weaknesses. If you choose to come you are rightly expected to give yourself to the cause of that region championship, so you can hold that trophy above your head, surrounded by your team, and run that victory lap cheering around the track, conqueror. Then you have the summer, you give every morning of your summer to this cause, to running every day for your team to get that region/state championship, and better yourself as a runner. You run countless hills and miles giving many hours of your time always looking forward to the fall that awaits and the races that will test and stretch your abilities and endurance that you worked so hard to build in the summer. When races don't go the way you want them to, you can't give up, you have to keep pushing, put in more time, and refocus and rededicate your efforts to try and get those times and help your team. It's impossible to ever reach your full potential if you are not willing to put in the time and dedication to achieve it. You cannot allow yourself excuses to the point that you aren't willing to run or push yourself to the utmost to reach that potential. Running brings out a persons true nature. It shows you what they are willing to give of themselves, whether they are willing to run through the pain, the cold, the hot, the everything, for something more. Or whether they will give in and submit to their body and the pressures that are inherent in running. It's a constant struggle, at times we all give in, and at times we all rise to the challenge. What defines our level of dedication is what we ultimately choose, and what we ultimately do. After a time where we struggled and we gave in, is it over, is that it, are we done? Or do we rise up and again face the challenge, this time with a new perspective, and a renewed determination and dedication to overcome the challenge, and we run and run till it we conquer it and begin anew, always pushing ourselves to stand a little taller, and race a little faster. That is what defines us, will we remain dedicated to our cause when opposition stands in our way and stares us down with the intimidating eyes of pain, suffering, and loss, or will we cower in fear and allow ourselves to be trampled beneath it. It's something we all have to decide. As for me, I pray that I will stare down my opposition and further dedicate myself until it is placed in the past, and I move on in my ongoing search for victory. I firmly believe that if we believe we are capable of overcoming an obstacle, we will overcome it, but only if we are willing to put in the time and effort to do so. Such is the power of a firm determination coupled with a strong, unwavering, dedication.

Socialism

I've mentioned this talk to a few of you but I thought I'd put it up here for everyone to see and hopefully read. It's a talk given to students at BYU by Ezra Taft Benson in 1977 concerning socialism. My dad showed it to me after someone at his work showed it to him, it's pretty interesting. It does make references to beliefs that are fairly specific to my faith, so for people that aren't LDS it may be a little harder to understand, but please don't take offense if you're not LDS and you read it, or if it doesn't coincide with your political beliefs, but I believe that these are true words spoken by a true modern day prophet of God to benefit the people of the world.

Here's the Talk

Leadership

Well another thought provoking comment in church has prompted me to make this little post. In Fast and Testimony meeting today one of the members of my ward made an interesting comment about their son that was returning from serving in Iraq. He returned early in the morning and one would think that he would immediately go with his family back to his house and rest up. On the other hand this man stayed and greeted each one of his soldiers as they got off of their plane and wished them well, and then waited for a second plane of his soldiers to come so that he could also see them off. This started me thinking a little bit about leadership. It's actually something I've thought about before, but never in too much detail. Prompts in seminary, Andrew :), have made me think a little bit more about it, but this is the first time I sat down and really though it all out and wrote it all down. So leadership, what makes a good leader? I came up with a little list of what I thought were the most important qualities of a leader.

• empathy
• humility
• ambition
• resolution
• dedication
• loyalty
• respect
• kind
• positive but realistic
• trustworthy
• Recognition that by leading you are serving

I think probably the most important quality up there is empathy. I think empathy gives rise to a lot of the other qualities. By being able to understand and empathize with the people you are leading and serving I think you gain a sense of humility and you are more willing to follow when someone else has a better idea than you have. You become loyal to those you are leading and you respect them and in turn gain their respect. You learn to trust them and their abilities and again by so doing gain their trust. You'll act in more kindness and be a more able, caring, and capable leader. Furthermore if the people you are leading know that you know them, that you care about them, and that you always have their best interest in mind than they will be more willing to follow you, and thus make you a better leader through their trust and obedience.

The other qualities are also kind of parts of one another, as for example resolution brings dedication, ambition, and loyalty. The positive realistic part is kind of off on its own from the others but it's also extremely important. Like if you're in a basketball game and your down twelve points, the realism is your down 12 points, you're losing. However, it's the way you shape the situation you're in that will define in part whether or not you will be a good leader. If you're down twelve and you just give up, you stop fighting, I wouldn't say you're the best leader, you're letting your team down. You have to maintain the positive attitude that yeah, we're down twelve points, but that in no way means that we are going to lose the game. This positive attitude is necessary to keep a team in the game, or to keep a project going, etc. Thus, by keeping a positive attitude you can help lead your team to a victory they might not have had otherwise, but again, you can't win a game by yourself, nor will someone who takes the lead in everything necessarily make a good leader. You have to recognize the fact that others can and will lead, and then be willing to follow. So those are my thoughts and I'll end there since the post is already a lot longer than I would really like :)