“The feller whose verdict counts most in your life, is the guy staring back from the glass.” The Guy in the Glass, a poem by Dave Wimbrow, tells the most important life lesson; if you have cheated yourself, your life really does not mean anything. I had this poem read to me right before my last J.R. Tucker football game. The head coach told us, “You guys are going to remember this game for the rest of your life. If you cheat yourself, the people in the bleachers will not know or care, but you are going to have to live with this.”

Cheating yourself can affect other areas in life as well. It might be easy to grab a homework assignment from a friend and copy it before the teacher walks in. It might be easy to leave weightlifting early, when everyone else does. I choose not to do this though. I will take a zero on an assignment if I have not done it because one grade is not going to ruin my high school career. However, if I got used to just copying other people’s work, it would result in more serious consequences, such as getting fired from a job or getting kicked out of college. I choose to stay the extra half an hour in the gym, so I can finish my weightlifting and know that I am just as even as the other guy across the line of scrimmage. Just as another part of the poem says,“ Your final reward will be heartaches and tears, if you’ve cheated the guy in the glass,” nobody but me will be to blame. I will be the only one upset if I do not do my work or am not playing to the best of my ability.

The poem is on the door to my bedroom. It is nothing special, just a piece of paper with a thumbtack in it, but this poem motivates me to do my best. Each day I read the poem so I will be ready for anything that comes during the day.