Assignment 19- Thomas

Everyone’s heard the quote “champions do something until they get it right.” It’s supposed to be this inspirational tidbit about how you should never quit, no matter how hard something is and that perseverance will help you prevail in the end. Not only is it cliché, but it is also terrible advice. A better motto is “The good people in life practice until they get it right. The best practice until they can’t get it wrong.” I was probably 10 when I heard this, and so quotes didn’t mean anything to me at the time because they were just philosophical guys using fancy words to try and find a deeper purpose to life. But I remember this quote vividly as something that changed my way of thinking. It was simple, but not lacking in inspiration. If you could do some insanely hard task, great, you are now mediocre. The real difficulty is perfecting that task. You probably think of this as a sports-only nugget, and I did too for a while, but it applies to academics just as much. If you don’t believe me, ask Mrs. Dewees. We get the most repetitive homework in calculus, and we often do the same type of problem 30 times before a quiz. Why? Because she wants to make sure that when the problem comes up on the AP test, we’ve done it so much that we can’t get it wrong. The same applies for timed writings in Logsdon’s class, and situations in many other AP classes too. Overall, this quote has been a great piece of advice for me and has served as an inspiration to strive to be better on the field and in the classroom.