This I Believe

Colin - FAIRFIELD, Connecticut
Entered on May 29, 2007
Age Group: Under 18
Themes: sports
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I Believe Essay


On August 8th, 1963, a great leader made a speech in front of a crowd of thousands in our nations capital. Martin Luther King’s freedom speech, although made around 40 years before I was born, had a great impact on me the first time I heard it. He was a normal black man, a Reverend at a small church, who had a dream, and who followed that dream.

I believe that dreams are meant to be followed. I believe that dreams are misinterpreted, and that people do not realize they have the ability to dream for a reason. Why dream about something that gives you a good feeling inside, and that makes you feel good about who you might be or what you might become, when in reality doubt takes over that dream, and you say, “I wish.”

Michael Jordan is an idol in my eyes and is another example of how to seek dreams as a challenge. He didn’t start playing basketball until he was 15 years of age, which is considered a late age to start playing a sport. Michael was cut from his high school team junior year, and his coaches told him he was too flashy, and that he would never make it. But he had a dream, and he wasn’t going to let anyone or anything deprive him of it. He later went on to play college ball at the University of North Carolina, and to this day is arguably the best basketball player in history.

It is these examples that motivate me. I too have a dream of playing in the NBA. Seeing how there are millions of basketball players in the world and only a handful make it to the NBA, you could say my dream is a near impossible task, but I like to think of it as a challenge. There are a countless number of kids who lay in their beds at night and dream about making a buzzer shot in Madison Square Garden with a knick jersey on. The difference between them and me is that they “wish” for it and I don’t.

I have told my parents and brothers that I want to play in the NBA, but their responses consist of sheer snickers and advice to keep my mind on something that is possible. It’s not easy hearing talk like that. Hearing that you’re not good enough, and you don’t have the will or drive, but that doesn’t stop me. I work out everyday, go on runs, practice shooting, in hopes to reach my first step in the journey to the NBA, playing college ball. There is nothing that will make me quit.

I believe everyone is born with an equal chance to be whomever he or she chooses. I believe dreams serve as a guideline, and brainstorming board to harbor all the ideas your imagination has thought of. If only everyone followed his or her childhood dreams, what a unique world we would become. Nothing is impossible. When there is a will, there is a way.