Always Watchin’

The other day I stumbled upon this quote and it got me thinking. The quote is: “Someone will always be watching our every move, judging our every action, reaction, and attitude. We can not hope to change this fact. What we can do, is be ourselves. In fact, be the best self that strength can muster. When we see our confidence in character, strength in resolve, and determination to succeed, love us or hate us, they will respect us.” ~ Ammon McQueen.

  Now this quote really just got me thinking about the pressures of being molded by what someone else expects of us. Or maybe not what someone expects of us, but maybe physically being molded by someone because you are around them. There’s always people outside your life that are looking to you. You are that person for someone and you may never even know it’s happening. 

  I find myself in this position a lot. And I’m not trying to boast about myself but these moments to me, mean more to me than any other moment. How can my life be seen in such a way that those that are watching me, know I’m living the life God intended. The life that is on the right path. The path I would take people on with me. 

  Well I believe whole heartedly it all comes down to character. How we, you, I carry ourselves. What example are you setting? 

Are you loving your neighbor as yourself? 

Are you building someone up or tearing them down?

How can my actions using this platform be for good?

Or here, let me take this a little deeper and think about those scenarios in this way...

Am I being an example of how to live a Christ centered life that I would want my family to know about?

Would I want my brothers or sisters living a life like mine? Would I want my brothers or sisters being around people like myself?

  The way we go about our life matters. The way we carry ourself matters. The people we surround ourself with matters. And the people we look up to as a role model/mentor/friend matters.

  Everyone has a platform. For example, my platform that allows me a chance to reach people is baseball. Another platform I have is coaching. Both of these platforms I am blessed to have opportunities to meet families, teams, players, coaches and speak into them about my life and how I got to be where I am. Sometimes all they want to know is my baseball story. Sometimes they want to know about my family or relationship or maybe even my faith. And I cherish these talks and messages I have received from people all the time because it gives me a chance to pour into someone. But on that same idea, I can speak into all of that and not be living what I’m talking about. A true test of how we are living our life is by the way our heart feels. If our heart is at peace and full of joy and going in the right direction. Those people that are always watching can physically see and be led by an example of your own life. 

  Like I mentioned above in some of those questions. The people closest to you are the people in your life that can typically read you better than you can yourself (at least with my circle that’s definitely true). My girlfriend, my friends, my teammates and my family. All those people in my life, I am someone they look to. I want to be the best boyfriend I can be because I want to show what it’s like to have a loving and respectful relationship grow and flourish. I want to be the best friend I can be because I want people to know what it’s like to have a core group of people in your life who no matter what’s going on, or how often you talk or catch up, that you have people there to support you and lean on every step of the way. I want to be the best son and brother that I can be because I want to be an example one day to my kids and maybe even someone who’s watching me that your family always comes first.

  So the way I see it. There’s always someone watching you and how you live your life. They may love it, they may think you’re a schmuck. But the way I see it, is that if we can think about what we are doing - the actions we take, the things we say, the way we live our life. The platforms that we have, we can do some amazing things. Because remember. Someone is watching.