WHAT IF

1.       What if I went to the moon in 1969?

2.       *What if my car didn’t start this morning?

3.       What if my mom never had me?

4.       What if I didn’t choose to come to college?

5.       *What if Portland would have drafted Jordan?

6.       *What if Detroit would have drafter Carmelo?

7.       What if Malcolm was silent?

8.       What if Martin was violent?

9.       What if there was no Rockefeller Law for made men?

10.   What if I only had one class a day?

I always wondered why the Detroit Pistons didn’t draft Carmelo, to me it just doesn’t make any sense. That year Carmelo was a freshman in college and had just won a national championship at Syracuse. Did I mention he also won a championship in high school? So why would you pass up a sure thing for something that had potential? Someone who played overseas where the competition isn’t any as good as it is in the United States. With the second overall pick the Detroit Pistons selected Darko Millic, no offense to him, but he wasn’t even close to the player Melo was. Now I know you are probably wondering why you aren’t arguing that he should have went first. Understandably, LeBron James was the first pick of the draft that year. He was the number one recruited player in the nation and also supposed to have been the next Jordan. Looking into that today that comparison isn’t too bad either. Neither is Carmelo Anthony either. He is arguably the best scorer in the NBA. Why would the pistons past on this you ask? They had just come off an NBA championship year. They had players from 1 to 5, who could do everything they needed them too. So bringing in Darko, was an insurance policy really to bring scoring off the bench in his first year. Ridiculous if you ask me, Melo would have made a solid forward for them who could score the ball and possibly send them to another championship.

I wonder what if my car didn’t start this morning how I would get to school. Normally I keep around 2 or 3 cars, so I never have this problem. If today my car would not have started I would have just been out of luck. Literally, this is the first time in a long time I didn’t have my truck for the winter, and a summer car. I have sold cars since I was around 17. I have probably owned about 30 myself. I quit counting a long time ago though. I probably would have had to walk, take a cab, or even ride the bus to work today. Lucky for me I work on campus so I only have to go to one place all the time. Honestly if my car broke down I probably would cry. That is just how much I hate being stuck and having to ask people for rides.

What if I owned a double bass pedal? If I had a double bass pedal honestly I wouldn’t know what to do. I don’t play the drums or any other kind of instrument. I do enjoy music very much though. I used to write a lot of song lyrics when I was younger and they actually was pretty good too. I used to have dreams of becoming a rapper. That was until everyone became a rapper. Then garbage artists started getting record deals. Which made it ten times harder for true artists like myself at the time to succeed. 

FEAR

FEAR

When I think about fear, I think about being afraid of something. For me I’m not too afraid of anything. Being the last of four siblings, there isn’t too much I haven’t been exposed too. Although there is one fear I have of snakes. They are just too slick for me. My biggest fear as a child used to be dying. Mostly because I didn’t know if I would go to heaven or hell, and I see death as no after earth. Like I picture just being asleep and never waking up, and no matter how hard life can get I somehow still enjoy living it. Everyone says you should fear GOD, but for me that makes me curious. GOD is for us, always with us, and would never leave are side, so I’m curious to why would we be afraid of someone who really doesn’t want to harm us? My mother says I should read the bible more, I totally agree.

No one wants to die, but when it’s your time to go I guess you have too. I even hated the thought of thinking about it. There are times even as an adult I think about it. Mostly when I’m going to bed. I just picture absolutely nothing and being trapped in my mind but not able to do anything. If it makes any since I picture being asleep but not being asleep but just seeing pitch black. I imagine not being able to talk to my friends or family, and that bothers me the most because I’m very family oriented. When I lose someone close to me I always take it hard. One of my biggest lost was my grandfather. He meant the world to me, and he taught me things without even teaching me. I lost him at a very important point in my life. I believe I was around 11 years old. I just remember him getting sick and there was nothing that could be done. I always felt that he would be there to see me graduate. I even imagine what my life would be like if he had stuck around. Thankfully I still have my grandmother around, to remind me every day how great of a man he was. Something I would never forget is the day she told me that he would be so proud of me. To overcome such a tragedy, I had no choice but to succeed.

Success is pretty big for me. I see success as failing at something but never giving up till you succeed. I believe in order to truly be successful you must fail first. Being the youngest, I always felt like I was in competition with my siblings. Except I wanted to be better than them at everything. I sort of strived for greatness. I wanted to build my own name and be good while I did it. I used to take pride into not quitting things once I started them. Once I got older I realized some things you have to quit, in order to succeed. For instance I was 21 years old and managing a shoe store. I remember being there open to close, nonstop every day. Till finally one day I said, I don’t want to do this for the rest of my life, I need change. I need a job that will allow me to go to school and do exactly something I would wake up every day loving. That’s a pretty hard task in itself. Think about that, waking up every day enjoying you job. Let my mom tell it that is nearly impossible. I personally disagree I believe in order to get exactly what you want, you must do things you have never done, and actually be well at it. How do you be well at something you have never done? Practice is the answer, working hard towards the results you want.

ESSAY 1

Rashee Jackson

Eng. 101

2/17/15

Essay 1

When I was a young child I was always told do to others as you would want to be done to you. This today can also be called “treat others as you want to be treated”. With that being said, this is what I believe. Growing up my whole life I saw myself as a ladies man. Even when I was younger in elementary, I was that kid with the 3 or 4 girlfriends. It started out with notebooks and suckers but in the end it would be something much more expensive my heart. I was a sophomore in high school and to me, life couldn’t be any better. I was a player on the basketball team, I had the best boy duo in town with my best friends, and I was new to a school full of “new kid” wanting girls. When I arrived I would never forget being at lunch and so many people asking who the new kid was. I knew a few of them because I went to a middle school for one year that wasn’t very far from there, but for the rest I was fresh meat in the butcher shop. I had numerous girls leaving notes in my locker, or even handing me notes in the cafeteria. My idea for the year was to stay single so I could focus on basketball and my grades. Until I met what would be my first girl-friend for the year. Her name was Holly, she was a senior and a soccer player. What I liked the most about Holly, she had a car. To some people a car means nothing, but to me it meant everything. Coming from a family that was in poverty, I knew that I getting a car anytime soon would have to fallout the sky, or I was going to have to work for it. Which for me at the time, work wasn’t even an option considering the other things I had going on. Simply put I was having too much fun. None of my friends worked, and they got to focus on school and basketball why couldn’t I? Well because they also had two parents, oppose to me only having my mother. Back to Holly, she would go to practice and why she was there I would have her car. Not to ever mention, I didn’t even have a license. Good thing I was a good driver, and my grandfather had taught me young. That would only last so long before cars, and a lot of girls meant nothing to me. After seeing people have genuine love and care for someone I decided that’s what I wanted too. So I broke up with Holly, and starting looking for what I thought for sure would be “the one”. Then I met Lechunda. She was a starting forward on are girls varsity basketball team. To me it was the start of that movie the “Love and Basketball”. I saw the fame, I saw that she was cute, and I saw that she was single. So I simply asked her out, and she said yes. Man did I think I was in love. I would carry her bags to class, hold her hand, bought her lunch, and even went to her games. I never took girls basketball serious, so that was a big thing for me. Everything was going great for us, so I thought. Until one day I came to school and Lechunda just seemed to be in a weird mood. So as I always do, I joked around with her to see what was wrong, but she was just not feeling it that day. Later the day, I would get the most hurtful text. She said, I just want to be friends. She said it’s not you it’s me. At that point, I was hit with my very own line. I was so confused, and didn’t know what I had done. I just wanted to fix this problem so the pain would go away. That was the first time I truly ever cared for someone. She began to ignore my phone calls, texts, and wouldn’t even go the same places so I couldn’t see her. She act as if I had become some disease. It was cold and I just wanted to know why. It was the beginning of my basketball season and I was no longer focused. I lost my starting spot and got to play back-up to someone who wasn’t even as good as I was. My world had become in flames. I sat and spoke with my mom for days, she could tell I was down and blue. She explained to me that this would not be the last time this happened. In my head it would, because I told myself I would never let it happen again. After days of walking around the school moping around like I had just lost my best friend, I saw Lechunda had gotten a new boyfriend. For some strange reason, I felt a sense of relief. I may have been in love but I wasn’t stupid. It was definitely the deal breaker for me, because I told myself there was no way I would sit around and be sad for a girl who wasn’t thinking about me. Moral of my story was maybe if I didn’t treat Holly like I did, then maybe what happened to me and Lechunda wouldn’t have happened. Maybe it would have happened no matter what, it was probably just my time to receive heartbreak. One thing I do believe in is karma. My “Love Boomerang”, as I like to call it, taught me a valuable lesson. That lesson being treat others as you would want to be treated, and no matter what remember that it may not happened now but love will eventually catch up with you.

70 yr olds

Rashee Jackson

1.       They cherish life.

2.       They live carelessly, really without a worry

3.       They either tend to want to do a lot or nothing at all

4.       Most 70 year olds take medicine of some sort

5.       Their hair tend to turn gray

6.       They always have advice for the youth

7.       Most of them are retired by this age

8.       Memory becomes harder to remember

Traits Revised

Rashee Jackson

25 Traits

Today the weirdest thing happened. Sitting next to a very lazy girl, she always seemed really sleepy. By the way she continued to watch her clock, she seemed hungry. She acted as if she were very old but very happy. The teacher handed out our papers, and so amazed because she got a perfect grade, the girl jumped for joy. Safe to say she is very smart. The school work bored her, almost to the point that it saddened her. She wanted something challenging that could keep her busy. She being one of those students who texted in class all the time, never paid attention. By the way she dressed, she looked like a security officer ready to get off work. She would always eat food in class and talked to people while she did it. Everything she said sounded like an interview, because of how down she talked to people.  I never saw her do homework but when mid-terms came out she always had a perfect grade. I would turn around most classes and ask her to keep her volume down, because she would always watch videos on Facebook and Netflix. One day while walking from one building to the other to get to class, and she almost ran me over with her skateboard. No apology’s or anything, I don’t know what it is with this student but she definitely enjoys life.

Triats

Rashee Jackson

25 Traits

Today the weirdest thing happened. I was sitting next to someone who was very lazy. They seemed really sleepy and by the way they continued to watch there clock, they seemed hungry. They acted as if they were old, but were very happy. The teacher handed out our papers, and she was so amazed because she got a perfect grade. Safe to say she was very smart. The school work bored her, almost to the point that she was said. She said, she wanted something challenging that could keep her busy. She was one of those students who texted in class all the time. By the way she dressed, she looked like a security officer who was ready to get off work. She would always eat food in class and talked to people while she did it as if she was in an interview. I never saw her do homework but when mid-terms came out she always had a perfect grade. I would turn around most classes and ask her to keep her volume down, because she would always watch videos on Facebook and Netflix. One day I was walking from one building to the other to get to class, and she almost ran me over with her skateboard. No apology’s or anything, I don’t know what it is with this student but she definitely enjoys life.

stress

Rashee Jackson

Stress

When I think about stress, I think about a few things. Most of the time I consider myself to be stressed. I tend to worry a lot about things that aren’t in my control. I’ve gotten better over the years, to where now I think just more about the things I can control. When I was a young child I remember my mom sent me and my sister to live with my grandma. It would only be for a few months until she moved from Chicago to Memphis. I still remember thinking, I had never been without my mom before. I wondered if she was ok, what she was doing, and even if she was thinking about me. When she finally moved down, she had no job. So I also had to struggle for a while which I was not used too. It was the saddest thing the year I woke up for Christmas with no presents under the tree.

I’m currently having a conflict with myself. For some strange reason I feel like I’m losing a fight with my ego. Mostly meaning I know what I want to do but something keeps telling me I would regret it. I even know I won’t regret it, I just have been thru a similar situation before and it took so much time to recover, and I don’t even know if I ever truly recovered. So as I sit back and waste time knowing something isn’t going to work, I feel lost. Even though I know one day it’s going to happen one day and I won’t be able to control it. Part of it I believe comes from my control issues. All I do know is I want to be happy again. The kind of happy where I woke up every day feeling great, and wondered what the world held for me. My life now isn’t horrible but I don’t feel like it’s my own and at any given second it can be stripped away. I know what I need to do, I just don’t want to go thru what I once did, but I also know the keys to my happiness hides behind what I need to do. So the longer I wait and not take action, the more time goes by and I’m unhappy. So what do you do when you know what to do, but don’t want to go thru with the results. But you know once you get thru the results you will be happy you did and happy again.

I would say toughen up, you know what you need to do. The longer you sit back and wait the older you get. At this point in life you should be enjoying it, doing everything you want to do. Someone else did what you did and was unhappy for years and when they finally got out of that situation they were old, and wasn’t very much they could do. They had to be very careful with everything. You are at the point in your life now, where you don’t have to be careful with anything. Care free, and careless. There is only so much time you can do that though. Would you continue to give CPR to someone you knew was dead, if you knew you couldn’t bring them back to life? No, so why continue in a situation that you don’t want to be in, if you know it’s not going to work. Every day I come to campus I see tons of beautiful women, and the one thing I know not all of them are crazy.

You have to do what’s best for you, not what’s good for someone else. Not everything is a blessing, some things are just lessons. If you keep pretending to be something you are not, you will start to believe it. Only do what makes you happy and believe in yourself. Even if you fall again and have made the wrong decision you will get back up, and you can start over again. Don’t cry over spoiled milk, just get a napkin, clean up your mistakes, and try over again. You miss 100% of opportunity’s you don’t take.