Don't Judge a Book by Its' Cover

Last night we had our life skill group and talked about what makes one person live on the edge of mediocrity or the status quo and another person is rocking the world around him or her? My point is to help motivate or push some of my teens and adults to step up and do something totally outside their box. The challenge is that most people today would rather live in their comfort zone and never push themselves to grow, because it costs them something.

As I was picking up one of my teen guys I asked a rather obvious question, why play sports if you aren’t a superstar type? Does it have any perks or reason to go to practice everyday for hours if you don’t end up playing all of the time? I was impressed with his response – sports are more for the average guy not super stud athlete and teaches that hard work and teamwork are awesome life lessons. He came back and also said that it teaches you to not judge someone by how they look. He had just played a tennis tournament and the guy that he played against didn’t look too swift but ultimately beat him.

I understand that what makes a person choose to be different than those around them is a combination of many things. I know that education might not be the path for everyone after high school and that getting a college degree doesn’t mean that you will get a high paying job when you graduate! Yet, so many today finish with debt that is overwhelming only to get a job that pays $12 hour. My hope is to be better at fleshing out what the pathway for helping anyone figure out their life passion, take steps to pursue it and then find people around them that can help them never settle for mediocrity as they find their life niche.  

I asked one of our teens that is the superstar academic and athlete type to share why she is the way she is. I know that looking at this gal you would assume that because she is pretty and smart she must of grown up in your typical rich kid home with a mom and a dad. Yet, the reality is that she has grown up in a Habitat for Humanity Community with a single mom who has struggled in bad relationships but has raised her four kids so that they always pursue excellence. I wasn’t shocked to hear this teen say that it was her mom’s push that never stopped that has taught her to step up and have dreams and aspirations that go beyond most. She has chosen to invest herself with many different projects and is an ace at volunteering.

I think the challenge of having this gal talk is that everyone is thinking I could never be like her! I’m not that smart and she is so cute and a brainy type. Yet, the reality is that she too struggles with not having a dad involved in her life. She has lived in poverty most of her life even though she attends a very expensive private high school. I asked her what was the cost of her choice to do well in school. Her response was interesting – I don’t sleep much at times. I then asked everyone if they were to do a time chart for their week how much of their time would be wasted on playing video games, doing Facebook, watching movies or just messing around. The unfortunately reality for most that are 20-30 something guys that have ok jobs but still live at home and spend most of their life playing Black Ops 3 online.

I wasn’t surprised to hear from a couple of my college interns that it had been their parents who would be perceived as just normal people that kept pushing them and cast a vision for being a life long learner. Yeah – you can never stop or slow down when it comes to having goals and choosing to be someone who doesn’t coast in life. So as we are finishing I ask one of the other teens to share his story about thinking through his passion in life, talking to a mentor and hooking up with a business owner that is doing what he dreams about. The neat story is that this teen was able to interview this business owner and then because of following through with job applications has a job!

I have to confess that it would be too easy for me to judge many of the kids in my group as not being capable of stepping up and will live most of their lives on the edge of failure not because they haven’t been challenged or had mentors help but because their circumstances make it too easy for them to become couch potatoes.