We all have adversity in our life that we all need to find a way to overcome. In my case life chose to test me when I was just a young boy. When the state took me and my brothers from my parents and put us in the very capable care of my grandmother. I was young then, only 3 years old, but there are some things you always remember, as long as it’s traumatic enough. I don’t have much that I care to say about that day but the many days after were a series of learning experiences, difficulties, and hardships. My grandparents worked very hard to raise 3 boys. My grandmother worked a day job, and my grandfather worked a night job and a day job so seeing them both together was rare, but I always remembered the little things they did to remind each other of their love. Through their hard work my brother and I never went hungry. Because there was no one at home most of the time I learned quickly how to take care of myself and in most cases my younger brother as well. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, homework, ironing, everyday chores that normal parents would have to remind you to do, I did without being asked. Every day I would wake up early to do my paper route, then I would have just enough time to get home, dress my younger brother, make something quick for breakfast and then run the mile to school. Getting home from school I would quickly do my second paper route and walk the dog at the same time, do the laundry, do my homework while helping my younger brother with his then make dinner for us all. Later in my teenage years I was able to get a proper job while also juggling extracurricular activities at school such as the environmental action team, student council and orchestra which met after school frequently. A lot of people these days wish or pray for things they could easily go without, like a new car, to win a track meet, or the new apple phone. I wish I had more time. Time I could have used to be a kid. There are many things I wish I could have done as a child, many things my friends experienced that I just didn’t have the time or the opportunity to experience. I don’t feel like I wasted my childhood, and I never feel like I wasted my time. At a young age I learned many things that other children didn’t learn until they left the care of their mother’s embrace. I learned skills and experienced difficulties early in life and because of that I was ready for what life dumped in my way. I learned young, and I learned on my own, mostly from trial and error. I broke a few bones, cried a few nights, and learned to push on. I would like to be bold and say my grandmother would be proud of me. However, I feel there is one more thing I need to do to show her how much I appreciate the things she did for me and that is to graduate college. I am halfway there, and it’s within reach. Just another few years. There will always be adversity and even now there are things I need to conquer, but it were the trials of my childhood that prepared me for the world I live in today.

When you can’t focus on the task at hand. When your mind wanders into dark places. When you have a project or paper due, but you can’t find the strength to get out of bed. Sometimes it is hard to find motivation to perform even the simplest tasks. Now imagine you have a full-time job, a part time job, you’re a part time student, you take care of your disabled mother, and you have your own mental handicaps that must be overcome every day. Mental health can make or break people who otherwise could be exceptional and contribute so much to the world we live in. For me having depression is a new battle every day of my life and the war is far from over. Having to worry about passing statistics and how you’re going to pay for statistics takes its toll especially when you also need to worry about how you’re going to pay all the other bills. Being able to clear your wind and find the strength to win the days battles can be a daunting task and one that I don’t always win. I continue to fight every day with the support and the help of many friends. Friends who understand just like me that we all need a shoulder to lean on. There are professionals out there that are there to help you, but for many of us that help costs what we cannot afford, whether it be in money, time, or trust. When it comes to your friends, they will always be there for you, and they cost nothing. My friends are how I maintain my mental wellness. Their constant check-ins and their support are the reinforcements I need to win my battles. Without them my life would be so much different. It terrifies me sometimes to imagine what my life would be like if I didn’t have their emotional and mental support. I can almost guarantee I would not be going back to school right now and I would not be passing my classes with flying colors. Delving into the dark I can almost assure you I would be in a much worst situation without their help. It is so important to have a clear mind and to be able to find ways to make one’s mind clear. If you are not lucky enough to have the support of such great friends, just keep telling yourself that you can and that you are worth it. Tell it to yourself every single hour of every day if you have to, because you are worth it.

I did not have traditional parents growing up. My 2 brothers and I were taken from my parents and given to my grandparents when we were very young. I was raised and grew up knowing that even though they were technically my grandparents, to me they were my mother and father. They raised us as their own and worked to well past their retirement age to make sure we were provided for. We were never a rich family and there was always room for more, but they worked long and hard to ensure we were provided for. This is not to say there were no struggles and it’s definitely not to say there was no heartache. I grew up watching my grandmother cry over medical bills they couldn’t pay. I heard her and my grandfather worry about bills when my grandfather was let go from his job after 30 years. I watched her finally break down when the bank took the house, we grew up in. All those memories are etched in my mind, but none of those memories compare to the day I slowly watched my grandmother pass away. My grandmother struggled with diabetes for many years. The disease is prevalent in my mother’s family as well as my father’s family. A few years ago, the disease had caused my grandmother to have a stroke. I remember the day because I drove from CT to VT with my brother to see her in the hospital. She assured us that she was ok and like morons neither me nor my brother consulted the DR. If we had than we would have found out that the stroke was much worse than she was letting on. My grandmother had to be admitted to rehabilitation home so she could be monitored and assisted with everything she did daily. We watched slowly through the course of a year as she lost her memory and her motor skills. She was slowly leaving us, and what’s worse is she was told by the Dr that it would happen. She knew she was dying, and she didn’t want any of us to know. She pushed on for a whole year, but on a cold winter day with many of her family in the room with her, she gasped her final breath and then she was gone. The loss was devastating for us. I had never seen my grandfather cry until that day. None of us have been able to move on from the loss and I wouldn’t think we would want to. After her death we had learned much about my grandmother that she never told any of us. We found out that she kept diaries, and she had many of them. The diaries contained notes and passages about her life and the lives of my brothers and I. She went into details about her depression and how she could tell that I also struggled with depression even though I never told her. The diaries told the story of her life and our lives. There was heartache in those pages, but there was also happiness, caring, and love. There were surprises, and memories, many of which no one had ever heard of or forgotten entirely. Through her journals we were able to relive the lives that we had forgotten. They helped us remember what normal families and normal people would have forgotten and what other people would kill to remember. I still haven’t even read them all but I have plenty of time.

Being involved in one’s community is what defines you and your community’s culture. Many would say volunteering is your civic duty, others would say volunteering is the example we wish to show current and future generations. I firmly believe that a people’s culture and community is defined by how generous its people can be to one another. People sometimes think that getting involved in one’s community entails giving up one’s life to help those less fortunate, or to help push for progression. Getting involved can take on many forms, some of which people voluntarily overlook all the time. For me, there is nothing more powerful than the power of the vote. Many people in our country today will tell you that voting doesn’t change anything, others will tell you they have the choice to not vote if they choose to. I say voting is your civic duty and I remind people voting allows you to voice your opinion and to push for change that you care about. The power of the vote is a privilege afforded to us all on the shoulders of blood and sacrifice. Millions of people have defended that right throughout our country’s history, millions still defend it to this day. To say you don’t vote because you simply chose not to is an affront to the very people who created this country. I personally feel that everyone should have the vote and it should be as easy to vote as it is to mail a letter. Every year I take election day off from work and volunteer as a poll worker. For over 20 years I have volunteered to make sure that everyone who has the vote gets to exercise that privilege. Volunteering one day of the year is not the same as working as a Dr without borders, its not the same as volunteering for the red cross to help with communities ravaged by natural disasters, but its just as important. The power of the vote has the ability to change the world, to change a people, to change a culture. When election day comes and goes, and the numbers finally come in, and you see that less than 50% of people with the vote exercised their duty, how can we say that we as a country represent the people? When less than 50% of the people vote for the people, they want to lead them, what does that say about the direction our country is going? I am not here to infer anything about why people choose not to vote. There could be any number of reasons why someone chose not to vote. But no one should ever have to say they didn’t vote because it was an inconvenience, or because they couldn’t get to the polling places. No one should have to give up their say simply because they couldn’t get a ride to the polling station, or they were unsure of how elections worked. I make it my responsibility to ensure that everyone who wants to vote knows how too, where too, and when too, because it’s not just their civic duty, it’s their right. What can have more influence on our community than the power of the voter? Voting is our future; it is the power that defines everything about us and what direction our world travels. That is what inspires me, knowing that the future of our people rests on the shoulders of the voters of today.

Growing up in the world of the internet has opened a new world to the people of this planet. I am old enough to remember when the internet was not a tool you could find in everyone’s house. Ima old enough to remember getting your research from scientific journals and encyclopedias. I remember a world in which all the information you could walk was not a click away. An age without cell phones and an age without online gaming. An age of filling out tax forms and having no help if you get overwhelmed with them. Oh, how the world has changed. In some cases, not all for the better. However, you cannot say that the internet has not allowed us to make remarkable leaps and bounds. For me, the largest tool is online school, in which I have been enrolled for more than two years. Even now trying to imagine a time in which online school did not exist is hard to fathom. The online school’s platform allows me to complete my studies in my free time. This is huge for me as working both a full-time and part-time job makes it difficult to find time to attend college in person. The online degree platform at my school supplies many ways to support my career as a student as well. From online tutors to online mentoring, many of the services offered on the school’s platform help me in my pursuit of achieving a degree. Watching to leaps and bounds the internet is allowing our species to make is sometimes unfathomable. 30 years ago, I would never have imagined being able to check out a book from the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford from my office chair in Connecticut. Information has never been so retally available. The world of the internet has taken dreams that once seemed fictional and unfathomable and turned them into reality. We are able to take dreams and imagination and turn them into our everyday tasks, like checking our email or making our latest tweet. We can use Google Maps to take a tour down the mountain roads of Kentucky. Or if you are feeling a little more exotic, you can take a tour of Rome in a country you can never afford to holiday in. Almost everything seems to be within reach in what we call the information age. There is no more proof of our accomplishments than the ability to continue classes in the middle of a pandemic from the safety of our own homes. Nothing in the history of our world can be used to prove how far we have come than knowing snow days and pandemics will not stop the 8-hour day of school awaiting all our kids. The only thing left to ask ourselves is, what’s next?

I am going to school later in life because I know how hard it is to make it in a world without higher education. My current goal is to graduate with a degree in business management with a focus on Human Resources management. I feel most people choose their studies based on what their degree can get them, whether it be money, prestige, or a future career. I don’t feel those decisions are wrong, we all want a job that can allow us to live without worry and a job that makes us happy. In a way, that is why I chose my study because I want to be able to stand up for the average worker. I want to advocate for that person who wakes up every day, drives through the snowstorm, and the traffic jams to get to a job that doesn’t appreciate them. The person who takes 3 buses to get to work because the company they worked for moved to another state. That person who dedicates their whole life to a job that is planning on outsourcing and letting them go. I want to advocate for that hard-working individual who chooses their job over their health and is forced to put their job before their own families. I have worked in corporate America for more than half of my life. I have watched as companies and corporations stretch and bend a worker’s rights to better service the company and I want to be that person who stands up for the worker. My goal is to graduate with my degree and use it to make sure workers understand their rights and the laws designed to protect them from greedy corporations. When a company requires you to work in the office knowing that everyone has COVID-19. When you need to drive to work in a blizzard because you know you will be fired if you call out. When you must take an unpaid day because your child is sick, and you are only given 5 sick days a year. I want to be the one who advocates for these hard-working human beings. I use human beings because that is what they are. They are living, breathing people who feel and worry and cry themselves to sleep. They are not machines who don’t get sick. They aren’t mindless wretches who have no feelings. They are people. People who are trying to make it one day at a time, and people who live life day by day knowing they can be replaced at any moment. That’s my goal. To have the knowledge and the will to stand up for the people who don’t have the knowledge and who are afraid or too tired to fight for the laws that are designed to protect them. That’s my goal. I know this goal will require more than 4 years in college and I know it will take time and dedication. I have already given college two years of my life. Two years that are well worth it. Every day I am in school is another topic or another lecture I can use to further my goal to help people we all know. It could be your neighbor, your brother or even a coworker of yours. These hard-working human beings need someone to stand between them and corporations, I want to be that wall.

It has always been difficult for me to accomplish the things I want for myself. I have a vision in my mind of who I want to be as a person, and I know how to achieve that vision. To some, this vision seems attainable and some may even think it’s easy to achieve. Some people have achieved the same vision as mine and may say it was easy to obtain. But these people don’t know what’s it’s like to fight depression every day of their lives. They don’t have to fight to want to get out of bed every morning, and they don’t cry themselves to sleep. My vision is simple. Make something of myself. Someone I know my family can be proud of. Someone I know that I can be proud of. I want to be someone who can wake up in the morning and be proud to get out of bed. My whole life I have fought with depression. I have never really been able to say I was proud of the person I was. I let depression control who I was, who I was going to be, and especially who I wanted to be. I would tell myself I couldn’t do this, or I could never obtain that. What’s worse is I allowed people to tell me I would never obtain what I wanted to achieve. I remember the day twenty years ago when my guidance counselor in High school asked me what I wanted to do after high school. I told her I wanted to be a veterinarian. She took one look at my grades and without knowing anything ells about me she said, “You may want to think of a few backups because I don’t believe that is a realistic goal for you”. For many years I allowed people to tell me what type of person I was and who I could be. I avoided getting professional help because I was afraid of what people would say. I counted college out because I knew I could never pay for it, and I could never accomplish it by myself. I avoided making friends because I was afraid of what they would say about me. The friends I did have I never saw because of my antisocial mentality. In essence, everything about who I was as a person and who I was going to become was controlled by the doubt that was always in the back of my mind. If something good did happen to me, I would never celebrate because I knew somehow it could always be taken away. It took many years and the help of some of the best friends a person could ever ask for to start feeling good about myself. One step at a time I was able to work my way up at a job that supported me, and with the help of my friends I was able to get the courage to apply for college. I was finally able to believe in myself. Yes, I am still terrified about the costs and the loans, but I finally believed that I could accomplish something. I believed I could change who I was and who I was going to be. For two years I have been going to college, and for two years I have been passing my classes with flying colors. For two years of my life, I actually believe I have a future. Just another 2 years to go. Now just to find the money.

I am going to school later in life because I know how hard it is to make it in a world without higher education. My current goal is to graduate with a degree in business management with a focus on Human Resources management. I feel most people choose their studies based on what their degree can get them, whether it be money, prestige, or a future career. I don’t feel those decisions are wrong, we all want a job that can allow us to live without worry and a job that makes us happy. In a way, that is why I chose my study because I want to be able to stand up for the average worker. I want to advocate for that person who wakes up every day, drives through the snowstorm, and the traffic jams to get to a job that doesn’t appreciate them. The person who takes 3 buses to get to work because the company they worked for moved to another state. That person who dedicates their whole life to a job that is planning on outsourcing and letting them go. I want to advocate for that hard-working individual who chooses their job over their health and is forced to put their job before their own families. I have worked in corporate America for more than half of my life. I have watched as companies and corporations stretch and bend a worker’s rights to better service the company and I want to be that person who stands up for the worker. My goal is to graduate with my degree and use it to make sure workers understand their rights and the laws designed to protect them from greedy corporations. When a company requires you to work in the office knowing that everyone has COVID-19. When you need to drive to work in a blizzard because you know you will be fired if you call out. When you must take an unpaid day because your child is sick, and you are only given 5 sick days a year. I want to be the one who advocates for these hard-working human beings. I use human beings because that is what they are. They are living, breathing people who feel and worry and cry themselves to sleep. They are not machines who don’t get sick. They aren’t mindless wretches who have no feelings. They are people. People who are trying to make it one day at a time, and people who live life day by day knowing they can be replaced at any moment. That’s my goal. To have the knowledge and the will to stand up for the people who don’t have the knowledge and who are afraid or too tired to fight for the laws that are designed to protect them. That’s my goal. I know this goal will require more than 4 years in college and I know it will take time and dedication. I have already given college two years of my life. Two years that are well worth it. Every day I am in school is another topic or another lecture I can use to further my goal to help people we all know. It could be your neighbor, your brother or even a coworker of yours. These hard-working human beings need someone to stand between them and corporations, I want to be that wall.

I am the first person in my direct family to go to college. To be honest I always wanted to go to college but never thought I would be accepted. It wasn’t because financially I didn’t have a dollar to my name, and it wasn’t because I had no emotional or physical support. It was because I simply do not learn the same way everyone ells learned. My entire life I found it difficult to read a textbook and retain the information I was reading. From my very first days in elementary school, I always knew I was not the same as the other students. For some reason I required extra learning, extra help. While all the other students stayed in class and learned what the teacher was teaching them, I had an hour every day in a class designed for people just like me, kids who learned differently. I always found it difficult to explain to my friends why I was in the "stupid" class, and I often would simply respond with "I don’t know". These classes persisted all the way to high school until I asked my guidance counselor to take me out of those classes. Surprisingly my guidance counselor realized that the classes were not helping me at all. My grades stayed roughly the same and I managed to learn at the same rate even though I was no longer in the helper class. She realized that I learn slowly, but I learn. I didn’t graduate high school with flying colors, I didn’t graduate with honors, But I graduated. To some people that may seem insignificant or a minor accomplishment. But to a person who came from a broken home, a poor home, with learning difficulties and no support, it’s a challenge and one that I overcame. These difficulties never really disappeared, and it scared me to apply for college because I knew I would suffer the same restrictions in college as I did all of my life. This restriction terrified me to the point that applying and going to college did not seem like something that was obtainable to me. It took many years for me to believe in myself to the point where I was comfortable enough to go to college. Every day of my life I doubt myself and every day I am terrified to see my final grades, but I continue with my studies, and I work hard to ensure my dream will come true. Two years in and I am an honor student. Two years in and I still doubt myself and yet I still soldier on. I want this and it’s something I will see to the end.

Zulu (1964). I remember the first time I stumbled on this movie. It was late at night many years ago and I was sick with food poisoning. I have always been a stickler for the older war movies, especially the ones from the 70’s and 60’s because they don’t use special effects or CGI. The new movies for the most part is unrealistic and rely on CGI to the point where it’s not exciting and it’s unrealistic. I remember Zulu because it had one of my favorite actors, Michael Caine. I remember saying to myself wow he is so young in this movie, but he did a phenomenal job as Lieutenant Bromhead. I have watched this movie so many times and still love watching it on those late nights while working. It’s almost the perfect historical movie and captured all my senses. I love how the movie made no reference as to which side was in the right, whether you were routing for the British or the Zulus the movie never made no attempt to villainize either side. The Zulus were fighting for their homes, the British were fighting for their lives. There was so much about this movie that current movies overlook. The director took almost no creative liberties, the story is almost exactly how it happened. Movies these days rarely are how they actually happened. I also can’t get over how many indigenous Africans were hired to shoot the movie and they opted to shoot in the frontier of Africa. Today none of these extras would be hired, they would simply throw it into a computer and digitally create the Zulu army. Watching the movie repeatedly allows you the opportunity to see those little extras that you overlooked the first few times. In this movie there is just a sense of realism, a sense that the director wanted to go that extra mile to provide a service to the viewer. The service being everything you could want from a war movie based on true events. The movie doesn’t focus on explosions or unrealistic heroes taking on scores of enemies with their bare hands. It focuses on the bravery of zulu soldiers trying to take their country back from honorable and courageous British soldiers, sent to do their duty, and that’s it. The director makes no attempt to tell you which side is in the right, and I like that. These aspects of the older movies are what’s missing from new age movies and that’s why I will always turn to the oldies, and that’s why I could watch the movie over and over for the rest of my life.

With only 3 characters? I am a realist, so my choices are the ones I feel provide a greater chance of surviving. Unfortunately, only one of the kids would make it on my list because even though they all possess their own qualities and bring their own skillset, they also lack certain requirements to meet my list. The first person on my list is Eleven. Eleven is on my list because she possesses supernatural powers and in the first stranger things there is only one person with the power to kill people with their mind. These powers would be moronic to overlook and as such she is my first choice. My second choice is Hopper. How can you not choose the chief of police to be on your team. Not only is he in charge of the law in the town btu he is also trained in qualities needed to survive in an apocalyptic scenario. Let’s not overlook the fact that he drives around in an 89 Chevy Blazer… Awsome! My third choice is Joyce. You may ask why I chose her. I chose Joyce because she is devoted, and she doesn’t give up. She trusts herself and doesn’t let people convince her she is wrong. She knows what she knows, and she sticks to her guns, but she also follows through with her plans. She gets things done and motivates those around her to act. I could have chosen anyone from the show, but I feel these three characters are the ultimate group to face whatever is thrown in front of them. I also chose them because I feel all three of them performed their characters magnificently, especially Winona Ryder, I truly feel she gave it her all.

When I was growing up, we were very poor, so a Nintendo was not an option in our family. It wasn’t until I was about 12 that we got our first Nintendo system, it was a Nintendo 64! Someone had donated one to the church and our family was the one who got it. I remember it so well; my brothers and I unwrapped it and couldn’t believe it. Nintendo 64 had come out a few years earlier and I had always played it over at my friend’s house, they were lucky enough to have received one the year it came out. We would play it after school every day. There were many different games but there was always one that my friends and I would play, it was Golden Eye 007. This game made or broke your friendship. It also happened to be the one game that came without Nintendo 64. There were plenty of other games that I loved, especially Zelda the Ocarina of time but that was not a co op, Goldeneye 007 was a co op. We would spend hours every day playing it. We would yell and scream in excitement, it would get out adrenaline going, and it would start fights. It was a piece of my childhood and a piece I intentionally wanted to realize a few years ago. I went out and purchased a Nintendo 64 and the golden eye game so my friends and I could relive our childhood. We couldn’t believe how bad the graphics were compared to current games but in the day, they were considered great graphics. As usual the same fights broke out over who was looking at who’s screen and cheating, but that is part of the nostalgia. They are memories, ones that I remember to this day and ones that I shared with my friends.

Toby Flenderson. Poor Toby. I feel for poor Toby. Working in Human resources is not an easy job, especially when the person in charge is Michael Scott. I am currently going to school for Human resources management and everything we are currently learning about is content that would have Michael Scott fired ages ago. I feel so much for Toby because he is seen and labeled as the uncool and the fun killer when in all honesty, he is doing the job he is required to do. He tries so hard to reach out and join in on all the fun, but he is conflicted by everything in the office. Sexual harassment, secret love affairs, employees harassing other employees, some employees hiding deadly weapons throughout the office… just some of the nightmares he needs to clean up on a daily basis. Poor Poor Toby. He wants to have fun so bad; he wants to play with the cool kids, but his hands are tied. I feel Toby is so important and everyone in the office overlooks him. Personally, I feel toby is the reason why they all still have jobs and not a single one of them know it. I can relate to him, especially when working for a small niche office with a small staff. Humor is important, and people sometimes will take it too far, which is why you need someone like Toby. Many people can relate to the office and many people know that most of the human is not appropriate for the real world, but it is so important to laugh and have fun, because living a dry humorless life is not an option.

When you constantly feel like you are subpar. When you wake up every morning and need to fight to get out of bed. When you constantly tell yourself that you could never be as good at something as your friends. When your enemies say rude and horrible things about you… and you believe them. Depression has always been a hurdle for me. Like countless others I fight to want to go to work and do battle with my own mind just to believe I am worth something. My depression has always been a hindrance for me. I would never take the steps to better my own life because of that voice in the back of my mind telling me I will always fail. That has been my whole life. From my teenage years to this very day, I always had a negative outlook on life and as such it has prevented me from doing what I wanted to do or accomplishing what everyone tells me I could accomplish. It wasn’t until 2021 when my grandmother dies from Covid that I realized depression ran in my family. While cleaning out her house My brothers and I found journals we never new existed. My grandmother kept journals of everything and anything that happened in her life. Many of her entries referenced her battles with depression and what’s worse is she also mentioned my own depression in those journals. They mentioned how she could see herself in me and she knew I did battle every day just like her. It was at that moment I knew I needed to take control. It wasn’t some magical pill or some miraculous therapy session that prompted this. It was simple sentences written into about 50 journals written over the span of 20 years. I took it on myself to enroll in college and to do my very best to defeat what previously had been holding me back. It is not easy, to this day I still find it hard to tell myself I can do it. It’s hard to see a future me with a diploma. Even when I do believe I will have that diploma I still see the massive debt awaiting me and I must fight myself from asking if it’s worth it. I believe I can do this, and I want it so bad. With no one offering me encouragement, not a dollar in my savings account, and with my own mind telling me I can’t do it, I still carry on one day at a time, one course at a time, and one term at a time. Year 2 and a GPA of 3.8. Maybe I can do it.

Being the first member in my family to attend college, I never thought I would be accepted. Financially I didn’t have a dollar, and I had no support. Because I don’t learn the way everyone els learns. My entire life I have found it difficult to read a textbook and retain information. I was placed in classes other students didn’t have to attend designed to help me learn. I eventually asked my counselor to take me out of those classes. We realized they were not helping. My grades stayed roughly the same and I learn at the same rate even though I was no longer in the class. We realized I learn slowly, but I learned. I didn’t graduate high school with honors, but I graduated. To some people that may seem insignificant. To a person who came from a poor home, with learning difficulties and no support, it’s a challenge and one that I overcame. It is important to understand who I am and how I learn. it will help you understand me. I was accepted to college. One of the happiest days of my life. I took out the loans and I went. I was happy, but the exhilaration dissipated. My apprehensions eventually manifested. I realized it wasn’t working out. Again, I wasn’t retaining information. I tried studying and reviewing but the more I read the books the more I didn’t comprehend. To save time I will skip ahead. I flunked out of college. I never felt so stupid and useless. To make it worse I still had to repay the student loans. A reminder of my failures. I accepted that college was unobtainable, and I moved on with my life. Later I would be told that I have Asperger’s syndrome and ADHD. I accepted it and continued with my life. I realized it explained much about how I learned. I took this information and developed myself. I accepted that some things may be unobtainable, but other things could be accomplished. I conquered my fear of going to college by making a second attempt. I needed to prove to myself and everyone ells that I can do it. Going into my third year. It is difficult, but I have stuck to it and currently hold a 3.8 GPA. I conquered liberal arts, business management, and economics and I am still going strong. However, I find myself worrying about the loans that are piling up. I want this so bad; I need to prove to myself that I can do this. My goal is to graduate college with my Bachelors in business management. I know it sounds simple, but to anyone who knows what it is like to be poor, you know the thoughts that manifest every night before you go to sleep. That thought of the debt piling up and the thought of how you are going to pay those loans back. Those thoughts are a constant reminder that I am gambling everything on graduating college. I no longer just need to do this to prove I can, I need to do this because college is an investment. I need this to get the job I want, the one that pays for what I know I am worth. I have hope and I am devoted. It takes steps that normal people don’t have to take. It requires sacrifices that people shouldn’t have to sacrifice but I believe I can do this. I expect nothing from anyone and I’m content knowing that I am in this alone. I continue because to me, the juice is worth the squeeze.

When you constantly feel like you are subpar. When you wake up every morning and need to fight to get out of bed. When you constantly tell yourself that you could never be as good at something as your friends. When your enemies say rude and horrible things about you… and you believe them. Depression has always been a hurdle for me. Like countless others I fight to want to go to work and do battle with my own mind just to believe I am worth something. My depression has always been a hindrance for me. I would never take the steps to better my own life because of that voice in the back of my mind telling me I will always fail. That has been my whole life. From my teenage years to this very day, I always had a negative outlook on life and as such it has prevented me from doing what I wanted to do or accomplishing what everyone tells me I could accomplish. It wasn’t until 2021 when my grandmother dies from Covid that I realized depression ran in my family. While cleaning out her house My brothers and I found journals we never new existed. My grandmother kept journals of everything and anything that happened in her life. Many of her entries referenced her battles with depression and what’s worse is she also mentioned my own depression in those journals. They mentioned how she could see herself in me and she knew I did battle every day just like her. It was at that moment I knew I needed to take control. It wasn’t some magical pill or some miraculous therapy session that prompted this. It was simple sentences written into about 50 journals written over the span of 20 years. I took it on myself to enroll in college and to do my very best to defeat what previously had been holding me back. It is not easy, to this day I still find it hard to tell myself I can do it. It’s hard to see a future me with a diploma. Even when I do believe I will have that diploma I still see the massive debt awaiting me and I must fight myself from asking if it’s worth it. I believe I can do this, and I want it so bad. With no one offering me encouragement, not a dollar in my savings account, and with my own mind telling me I can’t do it, I still carry on one day at a time, one course at a time, and one term at a time. Year 2 and a GPA of 3.8. Maybe I can do it.

My goals are finally achieved and I can take care of myself while also giving back to others.

There are plenty of books that people should read, many of which were created to inspire, teach, or entertain. I would have to ask myself what I want everyone to get out of reading one book. Maybe I just want to introduce a book designed to put a smile on someone’s face. As a child, I never enjoyed reading books. I read slower than everyone ells and I always found myself forgetting whole pages. Schools would recommend books that didn’t capture my attention. I would go out of my way to watch the movie instead of reading the book. I would learn later in my years that movies were almost never like books. I would find that some aspects of the book were always changed intentionally, or the directors of the movies would always take too many liberties to the point where the movies were almost never like the books. This leads me to my choice. I ask that you give me some leeway here because I could have chosen the King James Bible. I could have chosen something that completely altered the way we look at ourselves like Charles Darwin’s Origins of Species. Or maybe I could have recommended something that changed the face of our world such as The Rights of man by Thomas Paine. But I chose something that might be a little underrated. I went with Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King. I chose this book because you ask people about the adaptation to the big screen (The Shawshank redemption) people fail to realize it was a book first. They also fail to realize that the book was so much more than the movie. Don’t confuse me here, the movie was great, but the book was better. I feel we should be introducing people to the real stories. We should be telling people that books are usually always better, and they are usually much different than the movies. I chose this book for a reason, to remind people that what you see on the screen was first much more and it was adapted usually to sell a product to you that had already existed. I could have chosen something mind blowing, I could have chosen something inspiring, and I could have chosen something that was written a thousand years ago, but instead I chose something that captivated me, interested me, and kept me entertained.

I am the first member in my family to go to college I never thought I would be accepted. I didn’t have a dollar, and I had no support. Mainly it was because I don’t learn the way everyone ells learns.I always found it difficult to read a textbook and retain information. In school I was placed in classes other students didn’t have to attend designed to help me learn. In High school I asked my counselor to take me out of those classes. We realized they were not helping. My grades stayed roughly the same and I learn at the same rate even though I was no longer in that class. We realized I learn slowly, but I learned. I didn’t graduate with honors, but I graduated. To some people that may seem insignificant. To a person who came from a poor home, with learning difficulties and no support, it’s a challenge and one that I overcame. It is important to understand who I am and how I learn, because of what I am about to tell you. I was accepted to college. One of the happiest days in my life. I took out the loans and I went to college. I was happy, but the exhilaration dissipated. My apprehensions eventually manifested. I realized it wasn’t working out. Again, I wasn’t retaining information. I tried studying and reviewing but the more I read the books the more I didn’t comprehend. To save time I will skip ahead. I flunked out of college. I never felt so stupid and useless. To make it worse I still had to repay the student loans. A reminder of my failures. I accepted that college was unobtainable, and I moved on with my life. Later in my life I would be told that I have Asperger’s syndrome and ADHD. I accepted it and continued with my life. Eventually I realized it explained much about how I learned. I took this information and developed myself. I accepted that some things may be unobtainable, but other things could be accomplished. I conquered my fear of going to college by making a second attempt. I needed to prove to myself and everyone ells that I can do it. Going into my third year. It is difficult, but I have stuck to it and currently hold a 3.8 GPA. I conquered liberal arts, business management, and economics and I am still going strong. However, I find myself worrying about the loans that are piling up. I want this so bad; I need to prove to myself that I can do this. My goal is to graduate college with my Bachelors in business management. I know it sounds simple, but to anyone who knows what it is like to be poor, you know the thoughts that manifest every night before you go to sleep. That thought of the debt piling up and the thought of how you are going to pay those loans back. Those thoughts are a constant reminder that I am gambling everything on graduating college. I no longer just need to do this to prove I can, I need to do this because college is an investment. I need this to get the job I want, the one that pays what I know I am worth. I have hope and I am devoted. It requires sacrifices that people shouldn’t have to sacrifice but I believe I can do this. I expect nothing from anyone and I’m content knowing that I am in this alone. I continue because to me, the juice is worth the squeeze.

I am starting my schooling later in life. I am 38 years old and have experienced much in my lifetime. I have worked for small companies and large corporations. I always told myself that I would never make it in school because I did not learn the same way they taught. It was always hard for me to comprehend the information my professors were trying to t tell me and because of that I never took the initiative to go to school. Two years ago, I lost my job as an underpaid, underappreciated, and unmotivated customer service rep. Because I lacked the schooling I was always overlooked for promotions and never considered for team lead jobs. I was going nowhere, and it seemed that I had to start all over again at the bottom of the barrel. Looking at my options I realized that I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t work hard to move up just to be thrown back down and forced to start again. I enrolled in an online course for business management, focusing on Human resources management. Human resources had always interested me and was a field that really inspired me. I liked the thought of being in the department that had a real hand in building the company. Business management is not an easy course for me. I remember starting economics. The very first chapter of the book had so many different graphs and terms that I had to memorize. Week after week it became more difficult to understand and harder for me to focus but I made it. Not only did I make it, but I also passed with honors. I was so happy, but to be honest I was happier knowing that economics was over. Imagine my surprise when I was told that Macroeconomics was a thing and that I had to take it. These classes were difficult. They were hard for me to understand and challenged me with every assignment I had to do. So many times, I felt like I just wanted to give up because I had no shoulder to lean on, I had no one to inspire me, I had no one to go to when the graphs got harder, but I stuck with it. I took it one week at a time and did the best I could. I passed both of my economics courses with flying colors and truly feel that I accomplished something I was never meant to accomplish. I now feel that I can power through any obstacles in my way and see a clear path to my degree.