Usually when you are losing 13-2 in the last inning of a baseball game, the game is over, but not this game. When I was 12 years old, this happened to me. We were not a very good team but we always believed in ourselves and had a lot of heart. We all kept saying, “We’re not done just yet”, and we held our heads high. If we thought negatively and gave up, the game would have been over. We scrapped away for runs throughout the inning here and there. Then, with a walk-off single, we won 14-13!
I was not a very positive person but that game changed me. I thought to myself, “If I stay positive and take things one step at a time, my problems won’t be so hard to overcome.” I have applied this “positive thinking” to my everyday life. Any challenges I have encountered don’t seem so hard. I have used positive thinking to help me take tests and with the other problems I have faced. By thinking positively, I have slowed down my problems and worked through them. I begin by thinking, “I can get through this” or “this isn’t so bad.” Thinking positively helps me to not be nervous or overwhelmed with anything.
This new philosophy of positive thinking isn’t always as easy to use. Sometimes there are things I think I can never overcome like taking my exams for the first time in seventh grade.

Exams were new to me. At my old school, we didn’t have them and our test weren’t that long. The exams I was about to take seemed as if they were going to be mammoth-sized, like a never ending highway. I had been apprehensive and nervous for these exams for a few weeks in advance. Positive thinking didn’t seem like it could help me anymore. It was almost as if I had wasted the last year with this method. I almost felt like a bomb because I felt like I could explode at any moment from all of the studying and information I had to know for the upcoming exams. Feeling as overwhelmed as I had ever been before, I thought back to the 14-13 win I had been a part of.
I stopped what I was doing and slowed my studying down. I realized this was information I had already known. I knew it inside and out. I just needed to recall this information, which I had learned throughout the school year. Realizing this, I finished my studying and was ready for the exams. They didn’t seem too difficult anymore. I went into the last week of the school year positive, confident, and ready for the test. It turned out I was all of those things. I received all A’s on my final exams. Many thoughts went through my head. I was proud of myself, felt a sense of accomplishment, and realized positive thinking helped me once again.
It has also helped me with the bigger challenges of life. Within the last year, two of my grandparents have died. I didn’t know what to think. I had never lost anyone who was close to me before. My dad’s father died in September of 2010. We are a very close family so it was sad to see him go. I didn’t know how to deal with this. It was excruciatingly painful and it felt as if all my feeling for him were ripped out and he was gone forever.
To make matters worse, just as we were getting over my grandfather’s death, my mother’s mom passed away in April of 2011. Less than a calendar year apart, two of my grandparents were gone.

I tried to think positively but it just didn’t work. I felt as if I had been shot in the chest and then, once the wound healed, I had been shot in the back. Eventually, about a week later, I did feel better. With so many emotions going through my head I discovered I just needed a little time to let everything pass. Positive thinking hadn’t solved my problem, but after I let everything pass, it did. Then I thought back to the baseball game and how positive we were. In hindsight, we probably knew we were going to lose, but that didn’t stop us then. I wouldn’t let it stop me now. I thought about all the good times I had with my grandparents and I knew they wouldn’t want me to stay sad. I kept saying, “They’re in a better place,” and “They aren’t suffering anymore,” which helped me keep going.
Positive thinking has made me the person I am today and it has helped me become patient with myself. When I am nervous or struggling with a problem, it helps to have the right attitude. I now know I can overcome any challenge as long as I have the right mind set and it all started when we won 14-13.