Don't fit in when you were born to stand out. Everyone likes to live a relatively similar life because society conforms us to think this way. If you are quiet and don't like Friday night football games you're considered the outlier because you aren't like the rest of the majority of high school students. People can say whatever they want about me behind my back because it simply doesn't bother me. Say it to my face, trust me it's happened and it doesn't change the outcome. I've been told so many times that "if you don't come then everyone is gonna make fun of you." The number of things I accomplish in my life in that same amount of time I could be following the crowd is endless. I think about it like this, if you follow society you aren't staying true to yourself, but if you are like most of society then that's just you. Everyone is different and that's how it should be, but personally, I know what I like and I know how I like to run my life. Nobody in this world can change the way I operate just to be like everyone else, unfortunately for them, I like being different from the rest because that's what makes me. In the end, if someone was to ask me, "Matt, how do you stay true to yourself in your daily life?", I would tell them this; a person who is not true to themself is a person you can't put all your trust into, I'm not a liar.

How can you love others without loving yourself first? I wasn't able to find love until I found it in myself first. I believe a person can make you realize what you have to offer to the world and in turn, fall in love. I hadn't really found anything to truly love about myself until I met my girlfriend or wife. Through her, I realized that I bring a lot to the table that others don't. I love how patient I am with people and how selfless I can be which in turn shows how much I truly care about others besides myself. I could debate all day about all the things I came to realize I love about myself, but my determination and perseverance are something that cannot be topped. I play baseball and work 20-30 hours a week with school in session and it becomes a lot. When you play baseball getting stronger all year round in the gym is very important and beneficial. Finding time to get my homework done, study, workout, practice, work, and see my family and girlfriend, it's not easy. People would look at my schedule and say I'm either doing way too much or they don't know how I manage to do it all. Its determination and perseverance. Nobody ever said it would be easy but sometimes you just have to stay in your own lane and do what is best for you, if that means skipping parties for work and getting up early instead of sleeping in on the weekends, then so be it for the rest of my entire life. I'm always so determined to use my time wisely that somehow, I do it all with time remaining. I love myself for accomplishing my dreams even when it gets hard.

A dream is something you desire to live out more than anything in the entire world. Playing college baseball is the start of chasing my dreams because ultimately since I was a little boy, I've dreamt of playing in the MLB. I want a nice house with high ceilings, I want to marry my high-school sweetheart and I want to bless the lives of others. I've had the dream of playing in the MLB for so long because not only would my job be playing the game I love, baseball, full-time, but I've always wanted to give back to all the people that have helped me get to where I wanna be in life. My parents have helped me so much with rides, a car, and paying for baseball that I'vewant to help give back the most I can to them. After getting into the MLB and acquiring my dream house, I would like to give my parents a check for a million so they can do absolutely anything they want with it. After that I would have two kids, doesn't matter if they are boy or girl because I will either teach them baseball or softball. My dream is to make money doing what I love, to make enough money to set my parents up for life and to pass down my passion to my kids to enjoy.

Tough times are inevitable but I believe necessary. How will a human ever learn to persevere through struggle if the tough times never existed for one to encounter? You see, tough times are what make you or break you. They define you in terms of how strong you are to either keep going or give up. I stay optimistic through tough times by thinking about the goal I want to achieve. If you truly are determined to accomplish your goals, the leaps and bounds you have to jump through simply don't matter because no matter how hard it gets or how tired you are, you want to achieve the goal more than anything in the world. That person is me. I don't care how bad it gets, if I want something and tough times hit, my source of optimism is simply the fact that my goals are more important to me than giving up because it gets hard. Life is hard, it's a learning process, but if you gave up every time something got hard then you would never get to where you wanna be in life, so never give up. The "climb" is an important part of the process.

If I were a highly influential figure, I would stand for the equality of everyone. I don't believe it is right that we still live a day and age where some people refer to African Americans as "different". I believe that if I could have such a big impact to change something in our world, this would be it. Not only has this issue been going on for years but it continues to cause more problems in our world. I think of it like when you see little children running around at recess playing together with kids of other races. You see, the kids don't register that they are a different color race because they don't have to, race simply doesn't define a person, under our skin, we are all the same, so why should we let color separate equality. The answer is it shouldn't and I would a much more powerful stand for worldwide equality if I was a more influential figure.