The Ever Confusing Relationships

Ah relationships, the one area in life everyone is a pro at, that is until it comes to their own relationships! Half the time I wonder if people especially myself, knows how to have a positive, functional relationship. That's just the thing every relationship is disfunctional at some point in time. Some make it past the chaos of the disfunction while others perish in the mist of everything. Looking back I have had relationships die that I though would last a lifetime, but instead lasted only a few months. Relationships that I viewed as important at the time, I look back on now and realize that I was strongly mistaken. My family relationship is one that is difficult to describe and one that I prefer not to talk about. We have been through ups and downs that seemed life ending at the time. I reflect on the crap that I put my family through when I was to stubborn to listen to anyone else besides myself. You see, when your in high school though it sounds shallow, the only that matters is friends and fitting in. My senior year in high school, I guess you could say I was feeling a little (a lot) rebellious. I did things that pushed my family away that caused them to view me in a different light. I would stay out later than normal, hang out with people I KNEW wouldn't land me anywhere but in trouble. Yet I still did it because I was to stubborn and blinded by my own actions, thoughts and ideas of "fitting in." The thing is the relationships I had with my so called friends are no longer here, most lasted a few month then we went our separate ways. Now that high school has ended, I remain friends with two people that I use to hangout with. These two people are my best friends that helped me get through high school and ultimately helped me find what was important to me, so it makes sense as to why I still talk to them. The one thing I have learned is that my family means the world to me. They have caused me pain and I the same, but we always seem to be there for each other. I'm not going to sugar coat it and say my family is the easiest of  people to talk to because they aren't. They irritate me beyond words, but when I need something they are here.

Confident Yet?

Some people have an arrogantly high confidence about themselves, and others have a painfully low confidence to themselves. Personally, I have a confidence that wavers and changes. Some days, some weeks, my confidence is at a high, but other days my confidence diminishes. My confidence comes from myself and from how others view me. It’s one thing to boost yourself up and it’s another to have someone else boosting you up, increasing your level of confidence. With saying that, the opposite is true as well. When people bring us down, that tends to cause us to doubt ourselves, decreasing our confidence level. Though we say we shouldn’t care about what others think about us most do, or at least I do.

Through basketball, my confidence level has been ridiculed, dissected and has become intangible to me at times. In both sports and academics, to lose your confidence and to not know why or where it went is one of the worst feelings in the world. To be asked, “What happened to you, you use to be such a confident player,” will drive any athlete insane. To perform at a level of play that is below what you know you are capable of is painful for others to watch and painful to experience as a student athlete on and off the court. All we have now days is out confidence, so to lose it is scary to say the least. All the studying, all the tutorials mean nothing if you are not secure enough to sit down and truly believe that you can ace the test. So when we have a high confidence level how do we keep it; more importantly when we lose our confidence where do we go? For me it is as simple as believing the words that I say to myself. When my confidence is low I usually tell myself, “I can do this,” or “You’ve prepared yourself for this.” The trick is not to just say the words, but to actually believe the words that I tell myself! How do we know it works? For me when I truly believe the words I tell myself with every last fiber in my body, that’s when it will work. When I see my game or academics turn around for success that is my sign that I’m back! For any athlete or good student a loss of confident, just means we have to refocus and work harder. It means that we have to remember why and how we got to where we are today and remember that when push comes to shove we are good enough to succeed.