So, we're on the road tonight, visiting my uncle in the hospital in St. Louis. We're back late and there are all kind of distractions around me. The TV show "60 Minutes" caught my attention enough to hear a short quote from a story they are doing on a young pro-basketball player from Milwaukee.
As the news anchor talked to him about his start in American basketball, they showed the footage of him playing in Greece that caught the attention of the recruiters here in the States.
Humbly, looking down from the camera, he said, "There were lots of players better than me in that league, but maybe they saw that I had more potential." He is now the hardest worker on the team, thus fulfilling that potential.
It caught my attention, because we as a society seem to look at the here and now. Are you performing well now? Good, we'll take you. Did you pass your test with good scores? Well done, you have a bright future ahead.
Do we look enough at possible potential? Do we look at those that are willing to work hard to surpass unused natural talent? Do we reassure our kids that grit goes farther than just about anything?
Maybe we do. Maybe we don't.
But that young man made me think tonight.
Third graders finished and illustrated the sentence pattern:
ReplyDeleteMore than anything, I want to be...
There plenty of soccer players (and other sports)... but the one that stood out said “a doctor” and the illustration showed her walking into a hospital and the speech bubble said “Yay! My first day as a doctor!!” That’s potential, having such a clear picture for the future.