Inspirational Awakening

I never stop learning. I think it’s because I’ve been in school for so long that I feel incomplete when I’m not spending at least a full fifty minutes of every day absorbing and struggling to learn concepts I’ve never thought about before. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely don’t miss staying up late to finish homework assignments that were due the next day or driving everyone around me nuts to prepare for a midterm or final, but maybe I do. I recall pulling out my point sheet every week and keeping tabs on how many points I had earned from every quiz and counting down how many available points I could add to my list. Every point lost meant the difference between an A and B. I remember that feeling like it happened yesterday. I miss it. I miss the challenge. I miss the struggle. And most of all I miss the accomplishment.

It’s almost been a year since I strolled through any campus. I have fully immersed myself into finding a career by joining the working world and leaving academia behind. Working has always come natural to me. I’ve worked since I was fifteen and never stopped. But something is missing. I feel like I’ve stopped growing because I’ve stopped learning. There isn’t one thing in my job that I can’t learn or accomplish by learning on my own. I know all my tasks and what is expected of me before I even walk into work. Working hard, giving high quality work and perseverance are all traits that I have mastered in the work world but still struggled with throughout my college career.

The hardest trials and tribulations of my life have been through school. I always worked hard, persevered, and gave everything I had to obtain a great if not passing grade from my classes. But those traits alone weren’t good enough. Along with the many A’s and B’s I had received lingered D’s and F’s that have always haunted me to this day. It is just a letter, right? It doesn’t say who I am as a person. It doesn’t accurately depict my true abilities and give strangers a biased view of me, right? Seems silly enough to be defined by letter, but it’s true. It is more than just a letter for me. Because of the poor grades I have lost my confidence in myself and have a slim chance of getting into any graduate school. Further than academia, my grades have transferred into the business world. Nowadays, most companies require a 3.0 GPA before they even consider hiring you. Who would’ve thought that a single letter could have so much of an impact on one’s life?

It has taken me awhile to overcome issues with my self-esteem and self-confidence which I must continually work on. But the important thing to remember is that I finished. I actually received my Bachelors degree. I completed something that others thought I would fail at. I proved to myself that these letters would not destroy and define the person I was and am today. And most of all, I never gave up. I do not regret the experiences that I have gone through. I have learned so much about myself and how far I can be pushed. I know what it takes to succeed and fail. What is happiness without knowing sadness, what is love without knowing joy, what is accomplishment without knowing failure? It means nothing unless you have experienced both sides of the spectrum. All this is me. It is a continual process of my growing and learning. I miss it, but only for a moment because I know I can go back to it anytime I want with my head raised high and confident.

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