“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough”, that is a quote that I live by and I feel that everyone else should believe this also! My name is TJ, I go to high school, I was born on August 4th, I am currently seventeen years old, I live in Oak Lawn, and life has really just begun for me. I am a three sport athlete, I play hockey, run cross country, and track. The reason I have changed into the person I am today is because of all of the sports that I do throughout the school year. I am responsible, trustworthy, and a strong leader because of all of my sports that I do. During my lifetime I have realized that there have been many influences on me that have changed my life from the past to what it is like now, some influences for the better and others not so much.

One event that has made me the person I am today was joining cross country. In the summer I run with a dedicated group of people that want to achieve the same goal, winning. As I always say, “in order to be successful, you need to push yourself beyond your limits, and then once you’ve done that go even farther”. Most people think that us cross country runners are crazy, and they are probably right. In order to become good we must forget about the pain, and just run. As my coach says, “If you’re not dying, you’re not trying”. It is true that a person needs to be crazy to do cross country. Cross country also is one of the reasons why my personality changed from thinking I rule the world as a freshman, to realizing that everyone else has feelings and opinions as well. I have truly learned how to care about other people because of cross country. It is truly like a second family to me because we spend so much time together throughout the day. The other sport that has changed my life today is hockey. In order to play hockey, a person needs respect, discipline, and most importantly talent. Most people watch hockey on T.V. and think to themselves, “Wow that seems pretty easy, maybe I should try it”, but when they actually try, it is a lot harder than it looks. Everyone always pays attention to hockey especially during playoff time because they know how hard it is for the players, and the fans want to give them all of their support. One game that I will never forget about in my hockey season was probably the first game. We started the game off and for the first two periods I had a shutout going until tragedy struck. I got checked as goalie into the goal post and pretty much got destroyed in the process. The game ended up as a loss for my team afterwards because I couldn’t put pressure on my right ankle, which prevented me from being able to play my best. That is what taught me that hockey is a lot harder than people think it can be. Hockey brought out the leadership for my personality because I was always telling my team what they needed to do to win.

The other thing that made me the person I am today is my knowledge of my future career. Once I get past college, I want to open up my own restaurant that I can run for years to come afterwards. Ever since I started culinary arts here at Oak Lawn, I just can’t stop learning more about this topic. Thanks to this school program I learned one of my new passions for life. This program brought out my responsibility for my personality. During this class we always had to prepare the dishes and grab the right ingredients. This class also taught me how to follow directions very well which is very useful in the future. My mom always told me, “Really think about your plans for the future, and make sure that they are right for you”. The reason why I know so much about culinary arts right now is because of my parents. They would always have me help them cook dinner while they were in the kitchen. Without my parents I probably wouldn’t know half the stuff that I know right now. My parents are probably what gave me the inspiration to want to start a career in culinary arts. Cooking is probably one of the easiest professions in my opinion. I really look forward to advancing even farther into this profession and learning how to do even more special knife cuts, techniques, and many more ways to cook different cuisines. Cooking is so fun and is a very important job to keep because people always need to eat. Hopefully on my path to a great future I will meet some famous chefs and learn a couple things from them. Cooking really can bring out the personality of people especially during a full house. Ever since I was a kid I’ve wanted to go to different countries and learn what type of food that they eat every day. Just like people, meals can have a personality as well.

During my lifetime I have realized that there have been many influences on me that have changed my life from the past to what it is like now, some influences for the better and others not so much. I have learned that living life to your fullest can be a very big decision for everyone. We have the choice to live life to the fullest, or completely blow it away and not do anything productive with it. What makes me different from other people is that I am a very good leader. I also managed to pick up good responsibility, trustworthiness, and inspiration on the way. My life truly shows a point of how people need to live their life to the fullest so they can be satisfied when they die. I will be one of those people!