As I sit here and think about
standards that are most important in my life, a few come directly to mind. I know that not everyone operates under a
given set of standards, and I myself haven’t ever really sat and thought
specifically about how I operate daily, however now that I do I would say that
I do hold myself to a set, just one that I have never specifically defined. I would say that I have set standards like
honor, humility, perseverance, and dedication for myself to live by daily.
First
off is honor. Growing up, my brother and
I watched many war movies and classics where the main central character almost
always embodied this trait so I knew from an early age that as a man, honor was
one of the most important things for me to have. This strong belief was strengthened when I
joined the Navy, where honor is one of our core values. According to dictionary.com, honor is, “honesty,
fairness, or integrity in one’s beliefs and actions.” I always tell the truth, regardless of the ramifications
of it. Something else that somewhat
falls under this is living under the statement of Matthew 7:12, “Do unto others
as you would have others do unto you.”
Treating people with respect and fairness is something that I take pride
in in today’s offensive world.
Humility
is something else that I learned was a good attribute to have at an early
age. I was a competitive swimmer growing
up here in Florida, and a rather successful one. The problem was that when the success
started, I started to recognize it and it went to my head. I quickly became an arrogant little
punk. Luckily, this was fixed very
quickly my freshman year of high school – I alienated myself due to my
arrogance. It was only when one of my
close friends let me know how much of a punk I was that I realized the errors
of my way and I checked my attitude. It
took the remainder of my high school years to mend some of the bridges I burnt
that first year. After that experience,
I have strived to ensure that my confidence never grew into arrogance. In the end I am very fortunate to have
learned this so early – in my line of work, confidence is a must however
knowing your limitations is also very important: many a submariner has lost
their life due to the arrogance of their superiors.
Perseverance
is also something I learned from swimming.
I can still remember my first summer in the water and hating the fact
that everyone was faster than me. I soon
developed the method of finding the next fastest person in the pool and doing
everything in my power to keep up with them in practice. When I was able to beat them, I moved on to
the next swimmer. At times, the gap
between me and the next fastest guy was significant, however that did not deter
me – over the course of the next several years, I became the fastest swimmer on
our team. This has transferred to my
professional life now. My CO always gave
me the toughest assignments because he knew that I would not stop until I had
the work done correctly. Some would
argue that I am a bit over competitive, but I would say I just really like to
persevere in all aspects of my life…
Finally
there is dedication. I think this one,
along with honor, is something that everyone should strive to achieve in their
lives. If everyone would be dedicated to
whatever it was they were doing at the time, things would be better in this
world. When I was younger, I dedicated
my life to swimming – I swam 20K yards a day (except for Saturdays that only
had 1 practice and Sundays) for almost 4 straight years. I dedicated my life to my wife once I
realized she was going to be the one – we have now been married for 11 years
and 11 months and there is no end in sight.
Of course my wife would argue that she doesn’t completely have me since
I also dedicated a part of me to the Navy and the defense of our country. When I think about where this dedication came
from, I am not sure exactly. My parents
always said that if I was going to do something, I was going to do it fully and
give it 100% of my effort. As I said
above, I gave swimming all the effort I had, and giving max effort in my daily
life has pretty much been the norm since then, so I guess my parents get the
thanks for the dedication in my life.
In
summary, my early teenage years molded me into the person I am today. Swimming taught me so much more about life
than just how to properly perform the 4 different strokes. It taught me that humility, perseverance, and
dedication are all important thing to possess in life. Honor came from reading history and watching
movies about men that embodied what it was to have honor. With these 4 traits, I have put myself into a
position where I might have the opportunity to command a nuclear power
submarine one day, and hopefully they will help me to achieve that goal.
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