Captain.

When I was very young and barely even in grade school, it was my dream to be a professional athlete. The reason truthfully enough was never the money or the fame. I was in love with the game of basketball, everything about it. It became my life, and those who knew me then could testify to this. At this age that everyone had incredibly unrealistic dreams. As I grew older, I looked around at my little town. Everybody seemed to have given up on themselves and their big elaborate plans they had laid out earlier in life. I was still determined to do what I had set out to do. And then it really hit me. I wanted to become what I set out to become to prove to everyone around me that it could be done. I wanted to leave a legacy in my town for generations to come, so that when a kid growing up started to lose faith in himself, he could look to me as a source of inspiration to keep going, that it could be done. I wanted to do the impossible so that others that came after me believed that they could to. This drived my entire existence. As I grew even older, I soon saw even my own dreams begin to fade. I referred to this sensation as becoming a "victim of broken dreams" and that the good majority of us were victims. My dream to inspire people did not fade however, it just became harder to find ways to do so. Now, I realized a lot of things through sports, but they can easily be translated into other fields of life. In my early years of high school, I was always a really good athlete, but I never had felt comfortable on any teams. There was always such a pressure to act a certain way, play a certain role, and it always left me feeling very out of place, silently continuing my work and not making a big deal of it. However in my last few years of high school, things changed. I was now in charge of the teams that I had played a smaller role on my whole life. I was a captain, and I now had voice to control what I wanted. Little did anybody know, the only thing that I had ever wanted, was no control. I had realized along the way, that the best of teams were the ones that didn't set rules for each other. When I was a captain, my main priority was to let everybody be who they really were. While some thought I wasn't vocal enough as a captain sometimes, I just thought to myself, just let me be me. Let everyone be who they really are. After awhile everyone actually was becoming who they really were. We as a whole, had learned to love each other for the people that we were, instead of the people that we were supposed to be. This made us into more than just a team, but a family, one that I can go to whenever I need, because to them I can just be me, and there is nothing more beautiful. Yes people aren't perfect, thanks for letting me know that, you think I haven't fucking figured that out yet? We all have our insecurities and flaws and annoyances, but they are part of what makes up the human equation. Let them be, and life becomes just a little more beautiful. Be you, and let others be themselves. Slowly this world will take on a whole new identity of individualism. But because of this individualism, the connection between the individuals will grow much stronger. Acceptance will be through the roof, and peace will be much more prominent in a world where being yourself is almost the last thing that any of us are.