Ever since Bedtime Stories came out in 2008, my high school class’s song had been “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey. I never understood what is was that I wasn’t supposed to stop believing in. Should I not stop believing in my dreams or in magic. In time, I realized that too me the song meant I should never stop believing in myself. In life, I would face challenges and obstacles, but I would need to believe in myself to get through it. I would need to have confidence in the decisions I made and follow through with them.

In my mind, the epitome of this belief was an event that took place on March 23, 2016.

My baseball team was in a district playoff game. It was the seventh inning and I was standing on first base with a chance to score the game winning run and, in the process, help us continue towards our goal of achieving a third straight district championship appearance. Our batter was given the sign to sacrifice bunt, which meant I was to only run to second when I saw that ball hit the ground. The batter fouled off the first pitch. Then as I watched the coach giving signals again, I realized that I had a tremendous opportunity. The pitcher, in order to avoid the bunt, would most likely throw an off-speed pitch or throw it in a bad spot to throw off the batter. I made a decision – I was going to steal second on my own accord.

3.6 seconds. That is the time it would take for me to steal second, but would it be fast enough. The pitcher was their ace, their catcher had already made our lives on the base paths difficult, and I was making a decision without my coach’s orders. All I had was the confidence that I would do it. When that pitcher lifted his foot, I took off with absolutely clarity. 3 second later and I was watching in slow-motion as my foot slid under the second baseman’s glove.

Safe!

With that steal I had changed the game. Our batter was then able to bunt down third, moved me up, and managed to beat out the play at first. A few pitches later and I jogged across home on a passed ball, scoring the winning run.

Had I not believed in myself and my abilities, I may have never attempted that steal. Maybe they would have kept us from scoring and won the game themselves, maybe not. However, I have tried to believe in myself when it comes to anything I do. As Yoda says in Star Wars, “Do or do not. There is no try.” If you believe in yourself, you can succeed. We can all accomplish the unimaginable as long as we avoid doubting ourselves. That is why I believe in the importance of believing in yourself.

Hey everyone, it looks like 2017 is here. That means it is the start of my second semester at Penn State. Hopefully it’s a good one. Now lets get down to business.

First-off, for my “This I believe” podcast I was considering two topics. The first is about never quitting. With it I could talk about my experience my senior season of basketball or I might even consider talking about my baseball career. I’m sure they would be interesting. I might be able to come up with some other possible stories to wrap my point around, but as for now I’m still working on those other possibilities. The sports stories just fly at me though. My second idea was about the power of being positive, which is something I talked about during my graduation speech. The fact is that when we doubt ourselves and think negatively, we will usually get the outcome we didn’t want but we seemingly expected. If we believe in ourselves we can accomplish almost everything we ever dreamed of. I know it sounds cliche, but it really is true. I have been through it and I still experience it here and there, but I’m really starting to take my advice and it helps. What you think of yourself is what you’ll get in life.

Now on to my passion blog. I would really like your thoughts on this one. I thought my film blog was pretty good and I honestly thought I was getting somewhere with it. I think that with every post, my blog kept improving. Maybe some of my past readers have some tips to keep it progressing. I would be more than happy to listen to your feedback and see what I can do moving forward. I also have to admit, I liked having an excuse to watch a movie every week. My other thought was maybe writing about video games. Someone in our class had that type of blog last semester and they may continue it, but it is still a possibility. I don’t know if anyone will really enjoy reading it though. While I may enjoy writing about my experiences with Mass Effect, Total War, or Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and other games, I don’t think anyone else will.

Finally, on to my upcoming civics issues blog. I was thinking either discussing foreign policy or perhaps climate change. I enjoy thinking about foreign policy, and I believe that I have a pretty strong grasp of what is going on and the effects of events and how connections between groups and countries work. That is my opinion, but some may disagree. There are many great topics to discuss including: the changes Turkey is experiencing, the rise of Chinese influence, and the changing nuclear landscape. My other consideration would be a topic of climate change. I admit, I am a skeptic. While I believe in protecting the environment against pollution, I don’t believe humans really affect climate as much as some scientists and officials claim. In the health and medical sector, when a company gets caught tampering with a study, they suffer a severe loss in their reputation and people send research projects and grants to other companies, hospitals, or institutions. With climate change, when a group has gotten caught tampering with the numbers, it has gone largely ignored and nothing gets done about it. We also always hear claims that scientists have come to a consensus on climate change, but that isn’t the reality. Many scientists are against the notion or are toeing the line on the subject. I’m sure a great discussion could be had on this subject. By the way, don’t worry, I am completely reasonable and will listen to all sides and make an attempt to understand the position and reasoning of others. I also prefer polite conversations than strong debates which tend to turn into total debacles.