BY Robert J. Cassidy Jr
“Show me a girl, a girl that’s fine, yet i’ll choose the girl with good loving every time”…they call me Junior, others call me Rob, some even go as far as to call me by my full name Robert. When I looked into the future of my life ten years ago, I would truly be cheating myself, and my readers if I were to share what I actually saw for my hopes, dreams and aspirations. The fame, the fortune, the life of what was a younger Rob’s reality transitions into what one may call a sense of borderline ideocracy. Well, ten years ago I realize is ten more years of maturity. As the man I am today, I struggle. Not in the sense of anything more than the next guy since we truly do have problems in our lives which are guaranteed next in line with death and taxes! I dreamt of becoming two things I can even recall looking back to my ‘K-12 early days’ stating in front of a rather large roomful of people for my graduation into the next grade level where I was kindly asked to speak on what I want to be when I grow up… At that exact moment, Rob was not just making his debut as a public speaker yet grabbing that microphone at such an early age in my life showed me something I would never forget.
“I would like to become an iced cream man and a football player.” The moment I shared those words with a microphone in my hand for the first time ever, I was not only as beat red in the face as a tomato would be from the fresh farmers markets’ of New Jersey, yet I felt a feeling for the first time that is indescribable in a verbal complexity sense; I stole the show – the quite, shy kid who said maybe a few dozens words over the entire year, had literally stole the show. Now, do not get me wrong when I say this is not a story commonly told, I mean in the sense as up until this moment I was randomly inspired to share a story – which is what any great writer does.
Ten years later…seems like yesterday I provided my first mic. drop in front of that massive crowd. Nevertheless, words can lead to direction just as dreams can change to realities. One common trait both carry is the same common trait which led me and every other self-made human on this planet; each took the resources that were available to them, yet instead of utilizing them over time in a manner which each of them enabled the chance for failure to re-occur, each took ‘MASSIVE ACTION’ on the desired goal hopefully to become reached, eliminated the hopefulness and replaced it with a defining terminology instead; consistency.
To summarize why this was written is only capable of being told by the message you will encounter by reading this passage. I had aspirations and expectations of becoming something that I would soon find out to be unrealistic and that’s okay, because I had a separate path. All of the fame, fortune and lifestyle coming with what I spoke of that day actually shed light on an area in my life which will forever stick with me if development continues. I’ll leave you with this;
My choice that came with a cool ice-cream truck, cheap frozen treats and the memorable songs being played throughout the neighborhood by the driver – getting the attention of the youngsters, bringing them to present those puppy-dog eyes to mommy for a five dollar bill to get that refreshingly, yet overpriced tasty treat; it all symbolizes one thing we come to find out as we all get older. The vision of becoming the next NFL superstar, at the age I shared above, was one thing and one thing only…it was ‘just my imagination, running away with me…
“Some call me Junior, others call me Rob, I have learned in my 27 years of life that it is my call to determine who I am. That name, identifying ‘me’, it is only as good as the person behind it.”
– Robert J. Cassidy Jr
The South Florida Tribune
