From the Editors

Are you making the most out of your life?

Those football fans out there know that Penn State’s number 43, Adam Taliaferro, is because he didn’t give up. Last season he broke his neck in a game against Ohio State. This past Saturday night, as he walked out onto the football field greeted by a standing ovation, it was hard to contain the joy in my heart.

His mother beamed with a huge, bright smile. His father cheered and wiped the tears from his eyes. In that moment, fans that were watching caught a glimpse of what the Taliaferro family has been through and the love that they have for each other. I can’t imagine anyone watching without a lump in his or her throat or the heat of a tear welling up in his or her eye. Taliaferro went from a broken neck, less than a year ago, to wearing his team’s jersey at this season’s opening game. That is hard to believe.

We all have struggles in our lives, no matter how blessed we are. To on-lookers of your life the struggle may be trivial, but to you, it can be consuming. In other cases, there may be a trauma in your life, such as Taliaferro’s, and friends will feel so sorry for you that they don’t even know how to act around you anymore.

My solemn piece of advice is that you keep looking up. A positive attitude is contagious.

As we remember the late Aaliyah, I can’t stop thinking about the words in one of her songs: “If at first you don’t succeed, pick yourself up and try again.” How true is that? No one is going to live his or her entire life with no struggles to face. There will be failures along with the successes. Let the success shine.

Sometimes there will be people there to help pick you up and dust you off, other times there won’t.

At home, in Gwinnett County, I have a group of friends that lean on each other for support. Three of us have been friends since pre-school and the fourth came into our lives in the third grade.

Over the years we have lost siblings, had a mom with breast cancer get a double mastectomy, and now, one of us left college to become the caregiver of her mother with multiple sclerosis. Luckily we have each other, but with busy schedules, it is hard to be there all of the time. Not one of us, however, has ever given up hope. Sure we have had low times in our lives, but we always look up.

I want to follow up on what Joffery wrote about last week: depression. If you feel like the world has handed you sour grapes and you just don’t have the strength to throw them back, maybe you do need to talk to someone. Don’t be ashamed. You will get that positive, strong person back that you have temporarily misplaced. Trust me.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 7 2001. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry