Baseball was a big part of who I was growing up. All my family members played baseball in the past and are huge fans of the game. I joined a club team when I was eight years old, and I remained with that team until I started high school. With this team, every spring and every summer were filled with practices, games, and tournaments, and I never wanted it to end. I made the high school team my freshman and sophomore year and had great experiences. Tryouts for my junior year came around, and I was prepared and excited for another season, until I received the news. My coach called me into his office to talk, and what he said shocked me. I was cut from the team.

        I didn’t know what to think. Did I do something wrong? Why did it have to be me? What do I do now with my spring and my summer? At that point I could not imagine my life without baseball. After playing at the highest level all year for as long as I could remember, my career had come to an abrupt end. 

        Now that I had extra time, my family convinced me to join the tennis team that spring. I was skeptical because I did not have much experience playing tennis, and I had no idea if I would enjoy it. I worried that I would never enjoy it as much as I enjoyed baseball. I decided that to get through this tough time, I needed to try something new, so I started going to tennis practice. By the time I showed my face at practice, a week of the team’s season had already gone by, but I felt welcome right away. I knew this was going to be the place for me.

        I quickly found a passion for the sport, and I started training and practicing as much as possible before the first match in April. During the month of March, I practiced every day after school with the team and I played with my brother over the weekend. I had a winning record on the season, and I came one match away from a sectional championship. 

       Another activity I participated in during my first two years of high school was the math team, and I never scored as high as I should have during my freshman and sophomore years because I was always busy with baseball. However, I finally had time my junior year to practice for the state math competition that I never had before. With my extra preparation, I placed second in the state as an individual. 

        After getting cut from the baseball team, I thought it was the end of the world. I thought it was going to be the worst spring of high school and that I would not enjoy myself at all. Many times, when people go through struggles, they do not look at the bigger picture. I learned that setbacks are often blessings in disguise if we react to them the right way. There are many things in life that we can not control, like getting cut from a team, but we can control how we respond. Instead of getting down on myself for not making the team, I used the extra time as an opportunity to try a new sport and improve at my other interests. Rather than dwell on the past, we need to learn to make the best of our present situation.

        This experience has taught me that problems and difficulties in our lives do not have to be negative. If we have a positive attitude and see the opportunities that this setback has opened up rather than dwelling on the negative, we will be much better off. We need to have an open mind about new possibilities and change. Looking back, I am happy that baseball did not work out. I would have never tried tennis, and I would not have reached my full potential on math team. I am sure that my future will be full of more setbacks and obstacles, but through this experience I developed an attitude that will get me through anything.