I have been writing daily blogs five days a week for over 4 \u00bd years without missing a single day. \u00a0There have been times when I was really sick but I still wrote my blogs because I had promised I wouldn\u2019t miss a single day. Back in 2011, my daughter Ashley, who was 15 at the time, gave me a Christmas present of writing a blog for me that she wanted me to be able to post on a night in the future when I was sick and not feeling up to writing. I had forgotten about it until I came across it tonight and I just had to post it for all of you to read because her message was so inspiring. \u00a0After you read her blog I will tell you what happened after she wrote it in her life that makes this blog even more special and inspiring:<\/p>\n
In basketball, we have a quote we often refer to:\u00a0 \u201cYou miss 100% of the shots you don\u2019t take.\u201d ~by Wayne Gretzky (made famous by Michael Jordan)<\/span><\/p>\n In life, if we don\u2019t try, we don\u2019t succeed. Everything begins with ourselves, and only ourselves. Nobody makes our decisions for us. We control who we are, how we act, and what we become. We are all put in different situations in life, not always equally challenging. But no matter what, we chose the outcome. Life will knock you down, over and over again. I can promise you that. If you have no desire to get up, then you stay knocked down. YOU have to decide whether you will get back up. YOU have to choose whether you keep moving forward. YOU determine your own actions. The world will tell you that you are not good enough, and that you will never succeed. YOU have to choose whether to follow the world, or follow your heart.<\/span><\/p>\n Another famous basketball quote is: \u00a0\u00a0\u201cI never said it would be easy, I just said it would be worth it.\u201d (movie: Glory Road)<\/span><\/p>\n If you have not seen this movie, I strongly suggest you do. I recently watched it with my basketball team on the way to St. George for our game against Dixie. It is one of the best movies of all time. But this quote relates to more than just basketball. Each and every day we are faced with trials. If we push through these trials with all our strength, we will be a better person in the end. We have to trust that everything happens for a reason.<\/span><\/p>\n If there is one thing that I would want you all to take away from this, it\u2019s that we determine the person we become in life. Nobody can get in our way or stop us from doing so. Never point the finger, and never place the blame on someone or something else. WE determine our future.<\/span><\/p>\n Da boss\u2019 daughter, \u00a0Ashley<\/span><\/p>\n You can tell from this article that Ashley was an avid basketball fan and player. She loved basketball more than just about anything. The year after she wrote this blog Ashley ended up tearing her ACL during a ball game. She had surgery and after nine months of recovery as she was about to start the last season of basketball she tore her ACL a second time and had to go through surgery and rehab all over again, taking her out of the game she loved for good. Anyone who knows her could testify to the fact that this little girl practiced everything she preached in this blog she wrote. She didn\u2019t complain at all about what happened to her. She trusted that it happened for a reason and she chose to get back up and go on with her life pursuing other talents besides basketball.\u00a0 She made the choice to handle her trial with strength and she came out a better person for it in the end. SHE determined her the person she would become in life\u2026.and she is determining her own future\u2026<\/p>\n What an example she is to me and to so many others. We all have a choice of who we want to become. WE determine our future.<\/p>\n Have an amazing weekend everyone! I have been writing daily blogs five days a week for over 4 \u00bd years without missing a single day. \u00a0There have been times when I was really sick but I still wrote my blogs because I had promised I wouldn\u2019t miss a single day. Back in 2011, my daughter Ashley, who was 15 at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[279,1299,101,278,1042,200,1029,504,1086,105,515,551,282,97,575,1170,6036,7,5923,6040,2490,451,6039,6038,64,6034,545,1482,354,1773,1738,6042,6035,359,6037,777,1378,347,28,6041,281,6033,1166,2212,5104],"class_list":["post-5435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-acl","tag-actions","tag-ashley","tag-basketball","tag-become","tag-blog","tag-challenging","tag-choice","tag-choose","tag-christmas","tag-control","tag-daughter","tag-decide","tag-decisions","tag-desire","tag-determination","tag-dont-take","tag-future","tag-get-back-up","tag-glory-road","tag-good-enough","tag-heart","tag-keep-moving-forward","tag-knock-down","tag-life","tag-michael-jordan","tag-move-forward","tag-outcome","tag-present","tag-quote","tag-recovery","tag-rehab","tag-shots","tag-sick","tag-situations","tag-strength","tag-succeed","tag-surgery","tag-talents","tag-tore-her-acl","tag-trials","tag-wayne-gretzky","tag-world","tag-worth-it","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5435"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5439,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5435\/revisions\/5439"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n~Amy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"