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Dennis Zeedyk-07/11/2025

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Journal Entry

A person can “rent” a TV & DVD player at the Chapel twice a month to watch religious, inspirational or family-oriented videos. I organized it today for a couple of us and we watched “Grower,” a story about a walk-on football player at the University of Arkansas in 1993. It was very good & I could even watch it again. I highly recommend it.

There is one part in the movie where the coach is saying:
It doesn’t matter who your mom or dad is in football. You have to play as hard as you can for 60 minutes, inching the ball down the field.

He then said:
Sow a thought & reap an action,
Sow an action & reap a habit,
Sow a habit & reap a character,
Sow a character & reap a legacy.

I found this to be very applicable to what we face in prison. We all made a mistake (or series of mistakes) that got us here, but we need to baby-step our way out of the situation in which we placed ourselves. We need to keep thinking the right things so that we can start acting right. We need to start acting right to become consistently good people. That is how I quit swearing in prison. First, I tried to think about stopping the use of certain words and pretty soon I was consistently using them less in daily conversation. As I continued to consciously watch what I was saying and started saying them less & less, it became a habit not to say them. Now it is against my character to use a bad word – even one as “small” as ass or hell.

Journaling my thoughts every so often helps me to keep my head clear and focused on the goal of doing the right things so that I can get home as soon as possible. This, along with the book reports I write, demonstrate to others how serious I am about doing only good things to build a positive character and ultimately a legacy of greatness – even though I will have spent two years of my life in federal prison. It is never too late to take the first step towards goodness.