Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.
He grew up playing catch in the backyard with his dad. Just a normal young boy with a love for the game,
with a favorite team, and with a dream to be there one day. He started in the town’s little league, then eventually the middle school team, and finally high school. After two years his brother replaced him, so he moved positions; but in retrospect, that was the best thing that could have happened. Senior year: verbally committed to play for The Ohio State Buckeyes. In the first game of the season, the first catch of his final year resulted in his leg broken into three pieces. All the questions spawned in everyone’s minds, “What’s going to happen?” Six months and he’d show everyone the answer to those doubts and wonders: two individual track state titles in the hurdles. Three more months later, the questions were put to their final resting place, as he stepped into the Horseshoe wearing his jersey, stepping onto the field for the very first play of the season. Now, he is the leading wide receiver in the NFL playing for the Miami Dolphins. He wasn’t born with special genetics or with extraordinary skills; he was born with a drive, a desire, and a will to work as hard as he can. This is my life hero, my everyday inspiration, my cousin, Brian Hartline. This is a perfect example of where hard work can take a person. Although it is a unique case of such extreme success, the idea can apply to everything we do every day of our lives.
Very few things come easy to us in life. Once we are released like butterflies to make our own path, very few
things are handed to us. The obstacles we are presented with, that we have to conquer and move past to grow, are rarely surmounted easily. From the very beginning of our lives we start overcoming challenges that nobody except
ourselves can do for us. Walking, for example, is a task that our parents can show us and encourage us to do, but ultimately they cannot walk for us. Our own two legs, our determination, and our perseverance are what lead us to take our first steps as an individual. And the rest of our lives we spend in a similar manner, trying to beat a challenge, improve our everyday situations, or merely survive day to day.
Often it’s easy to lose sight of a goal, an endpoint, a destination. It’s easier to see how far we have
to go to reach something than to accept the effort and the sacrifices it will take to get there. Too many times it seems more convenient to do what is fitting for the time and situation, and we often think, “I’ll do better next time” or “I’ll worry about it later.” But what if there isn’t a next time? What if later never comes? Life is a funny thing, sometimes it gives us what we want and other times it snatches it away like it never even existed, just like Brian's senior season was taken away in the moment of impact of that one tackle. So why wait? Why chance never having the opportunity to do, achieve, or get something you want, need, or desire? Working hard and doing what needs to be done right now are, in my mind, the only viable options in almost every situation. Every day when something seems to be a challenge, I just think to myself, “Nobody said it would be easy, they just said it would be worth it.”