This I Believe

     "You'll never know unless you try it.", my mom always said. This might be the single best piece of advice I have ever recieved. I would never have thought that a saying so simple and common could mean so much.  I waited far too long before I actualy started following this advice and would give anything if I could go back in time and listen to my mom. I don't think any one can fully live life until they try things that they are unsure of. I don't know how you could go through life by just assuming you will not like something. Ever since I have been in high school, I have tried countless things that I never would have when I was younger just because I always thought I would not like it. As it turns out, many things that I thought I would not like, I ended up loving. I think this is true for a lot of people. The more you try things, the better chance you will find something you really like. It could be something as simple as a food or drink to somthing as important as a job.  I can think of no better example than tennis.
     I had always thought of tennis as a very boring sport that no body liked. The summer going into my junior year, one of my friends had been watching tennis on ESPN and really wanted me to play with him. I thought it would be very boring but I gave it a shot. We found some old tennis rackets in my garage and a couple of tennis balls and went down to the school to play. It was quite clear that neither one of us had ever played a game of tennis before, but I actually found myself having a great time. The wierd thing was that by the time we were done, I had actually gotten a lot better than when we started. After we finished I decided that I wanted to play again, so I got some of my other friends to start playing a few days of the week. By the time summer was over, I could easily beat any of my friends and wanted to play tennis all the time.
     When spring rolled around, my girlfriend and I started playing a few times a week. Then when summer came, I decided that I wanted to do lessons, so I signed up for lessons three days a week with the high school players. I had progressed rapidly for such a short amount of time and my coaches were telling me that I should take winter lessons and start talking to colleges that I could play for. Now I am taking lessons that will last until spring when the high school season starts. I have also talked to the Otterbien men's tennis coach and after hitting with some of his players, he has informed me that I should be able to make their college team.
     The point of all this is that I would have never been able to play what is now my favorite sport for a college, if I would have decided not to try it. I could have just as easily said no and assumed I would not have liked it. This is not the only thing that I thought I would hate and ended up liking. I played volleyball for the school for two years and I thought it would be boring before I tried it. I also decided to try out for punter freshman year on the football team and ended up getting the position. There are so many things that I love today that I never would have thought I would before I tried them. I think that if every one believed in this advice, there would be a lot more happy people in the world. Do you really want to miss an oppurtunity that could change your life for the better, just because you did'nt feel like trying something? I'm sure that there are tons of things in the world that certain people would love, but they don't even know they would love it because they will never try it. I believe that you should try as many things as possible and do not pass by oppurtunites to try new things. You may end up regeting it later.