Coming Back

AuthorHouse

Chapter One

Comeback: a noun meaning a return to a higher rank, popularity, position, prosperity, or better situation. The word has many different meanings, and a different meaning to every individual, family, business, and even our own country. The term is used in all facets of life, including athletics, business, news events, and our personal lives. Take a look in the mirror. Now take a look at any of your photos that include you, your family, friends, co-workers, and even strangers. The person that you see in the mirror and everyone in those photos has faced major setbacks in their lives that they have had to come back from. Everyone in every phase of life experiences setbacks, and comebacks. Some are minor, but be assured some are or will be major. During every stage of our childhood, teen years, young adult life, the middle ages, and through the golden years, we all experience ups and downs, highs and lows. How we come back from the downs and the lows helps determine the quality of our life, our happiness, and the type of influence we'll have on our family and all of those around us. Our relationship with God, our marital relationship, business relationships, child rearing, and the pursuit of life's individual goals all require the ability to come back from the curve balls and adversities that life throws at each and every one of us.

Comebacks are not limited to each of us as individuals. Entire countries are forced to make comebacks. They all face adversities and events that they have to come back from. In the case of countries, these comebacks may take centuries, as was the case of Rome's comeback from its great fall on September 4, 476 AD. In some cases the time might be limited to decades, such as the United States' recovery from the Great Depression, which began in 1929. While countries can and do come back from adversity, the most important comebacks and the ones that matter most are the ones that we make in our own lives.

These comebacks depend upon the individual alone. They do not take centuries or decades. Most of us face comebacks on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. We must recognize that these comebacks not only serve to make each of us stronger in character, but they also prepare us for the next test that we will face. There will be more. A lifetime full, to be exact. God will, without fail, help us through these trying times. The sooner we learn to depend on Him in the good times, as well as these times of trial and tribulation, the sooner we are able to understand that these tests, trials, and curve balls in life do serve a purpose. They are meaningful, insightful, and are beneficial in the circle, or as I call it, the circus of life.

There are many people who do not have the faith and strength to come back from life's trials. Thus we have suicide, an alarming increase in our crime rate, and more homeless people than at any other time in history. During my own learning process of these lessons in life, I, like all humans, have experienced happiness, sadness, jubilation, devastation, and every emotion in between. While preparing for my latest comeback, I began seeing my entire life as a long series of individual setbacks and comebacks. I started observing my family, friends, celebrities, and even strangers. I learned that everyone has problems they must come back from. It's not just you and me. I had a stunning revelation ... life is not ever going to be perfect. No, not ever, so enjoy every single day for what it is, a gift from God

At the same time, I started taking a look at the people and the nation around me. That's when I realized that not only is every individual on a comeback trail, but also the United States faces a comeback trail of its own in order to survive. There is something to be said for the good old days. Our country needs to return to the days of love, morality, fairness, justice, charity, good business sense, and logical decisionmaking. There can be, and needs to be, a coming back of the old American way of life, with close-knit communities. Communities made up of individuals helping one another instead of hurting, cheating, robbing, and killing one another. As a nation, if we continue on our current path, our country will not come back, and will eventually implode. The implosion will be due to a lack of love, morals, common sense, and a lack of good work ethics

As far back as November 21, 1864, Abraham Lincoln said, "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country ... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its rein by working on the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."

This is exactly where our country stands 146 years later. Our lives have become too fast paced, and we have become too intelligent and advanced for our own good or for the good of our nation as a whole. Many crimes are committed against individuals and families due to the improper use of something as simple as the Internet. From embezzlement, kidnapping, theft, rape, and child molestation, to the ultimate crime of murder, the Internet has been used to commit each of these crimes many times over. Was it really that bad having to look a word up in the dictionary or learning history from an encyclopedia? I'm unaware of any crimes committed because of Webster's Dictionary or the World Book Encyclopedia.

Technology's negative effect goes much further than just the Internet. Most of the children and teens in the United States spend far too much time on the computer, playing video games, listening to iPods, talking on cell phones, and watching television. That's probably the only issue that President Obama and I have agreed on since he took office. At his commencement speech at Hampton University in May 2010 he stated "And with iPods and iPads, and Xboxes and PlayStations-none of which I know how to work-information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation. So all of this is not only putting pressure on you; it's putting new pressure on our country and on our democracy."

It's our responsibility as educators, parents, and grandparents to make sure the next generation has other interests that will be healthy and lead not only to building their minds, bodies, and self-esteem, but will also provide our country with the leadership it requires to come back and be a successful nation once again. The current generation will be the generation that initiates our country's comeback, if a comeback is to be generated.

In everyone's life there has to be a purpose and a goal for each stage of that life. Without goals a person's life is like going on a long trip with no map and no directions, no destination. You'll get lost! After many years I realized that I used basketball as my outlet, my character builder, and it played a large part in forming me into the person I am today. For others it might be art, music, photography, religion, or any other interest, but everyone has something in life that makes him or her who he or she is and helps to develop him or her into who...