Wellness Wednesday: It Takes One Spark to Light a Fire and the Power of Positivity

This article was written by Cameron on how words of inspiration can inspire us on a path of something great!

It’s 4th grade, your 10 years old, and the PE Teacher instructs your class to run 12 laps around an outdoor basketball court. That was the start of my running career.

I completed my 12 laps and ended up lapping everyone in the class. Afterwards, this following sentence reshaped my life forever. My PE Teacher said, “you should run cross country when you get into 7th grade.” I didn’t know what cross country was… but I knew what baseball, basketball, and football were. Fast forward to 7th grade and I’m sitting in class when a message over the intercom is announced.. “students reminder, the bus for Cross Country practice departs at 3:45 following final period.”

All of sudden deja vu sets in, “oh yeah, that’s what my PE teacher told me to do.” That same day I went home and tried to explain what cross country was to my parents, granted this was before my internet days. We came to the conclusion that you run for long distances in the woods… come to find out we weren’t that far off.

Needless to say, I joined, I ran, and at first I hated it. In fact, after one day at practice my calves hurt so bad I told my mother I wanted to quit. She then told me to stick it out until the first cross country meet of the season. I heeded her advice and did just that, I finished 11th place out over 120 kids or so. My coach greeted me at the finish line with a high five and said “if you finished in the top 10 you would have gotten a t-shirt.”

Two races later I finished 9th and got that shirt. I say all this because in times where things can seem difficult, sometimes all that’s needed is for someone to step in and give you just an inkling of positivity. If that PE teacher would have never of mentioned that I did a great job in class and should run when I get older, I would have never of set two high school records, or won two state titles. I might not of even gotten the chance to accept a scholarship to run at a DI college for four years and meet my wife, graduate with a degree and get the chance to write this article.

To this day I still love to run, I don’t get to do it as much but it will forever remain a passion of mine. As a wellness consultant I get the chance to speak to Healthy Workplaces throughout Mississippi in hopes that my advice will spark that fire in someone else. To this day I don’t know who that PE Teacher was, but I owe a lot to her and what she said to me that one day.

All in all remember that words can hold an abundance of power, so why not make it positive?