Tony Hawk’s “This I Belive” article really intrigued me. In it, he talked mainly about how important it is to do what you love no matter what everyone else thinks. The first big struggle he had was when he turned pro at seventeen and his careers teacher told him in front of the class that he would have no future in the world of skateboarding and that it was not a real job. His teacher was not the only one with that same opinion and, at some times, it made Tony rethink his life decision almost to the point of abbandoning it all together. But through it all he never quit and never stopped riding. Over his career, the sport progressed and became a very popular competative sport. He went from barely scraping by and thinking of Taco Bell as fine dining to being the most well known pioneer of skateboarding. Now he has many different job titles such as CEO but he is most proud of his title as proffesional skateboarder. He concludes with saying that doing what you love will bring you more happiness than anything even if you are not rich or famous.
I really like his essay mainly because we rarely know the full life story of our favorite celebrities and that zero to hero stories happen more than we think. It is also good to know that when you do follow what you love that it is not always going to be easy. In any path we take, there will be bumps in the road (or in Michigan’s case, huge potholes!) but the important thing is to perservere and you will end up right where you want to be. One of my favorite quotes comes from some Chinese Philosipher who said “If you do what you love to do, you’ll never have to work a day in you life.” Tony Hawk is a testimony to that and through his example, hopefully we, too, can achieve the same happiness as Tony, just in our own way.
Entries (RSS)
March 1st, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Wow thats awesome to hear about that, I would have never guessed that happened to him. But this for sure leaves a good message for all of us. Well said.
March 19th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Wow thats an amazing message. You don’t exactly think about something like that when you think about Tony Hawk.
March 24th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Your response is very insightful. It’s true we only see one side of celebrities, but hearing what they have to say can really help some people along.