This Is Who I Think I Am

Since I was about 13, I planned on being a mechanical engineer. I wanted to take this degree and parley it into a career in the open-wheel racing, designing the parts that were to be used to in the cars. Growing up this made perfect sense, I even had a insider, that is very well renowned and respected, that could get me into the industry. So this is what I planned the majority of my life.

Then came college. My first year of college I attend the University of Southern Indiana. I enrolled in classes that would get me to my dream. But something went wrong. I had this mentality that I could just approach college as a did high school and that I needed to make my freshmen year something that of animal house. Well, I did just that and had a great adventure, but it didn't provide me much time to get my school work done. I ended up failing most of my classes that I took my first semester. After seeing my grades I began to question if I was cut out for college. A lot of my dropped out around me. With all of this emotion I had for failing school, my parents, and myself, I really considered dropping out. Day in and day out question myself and what I was worth. As well as what the hell was I going to do with my life. I had always planned on going to college. Maybe with the chance of not being a mechanical engineer but at least something

When the second semester ended and everyone went home for winter, I began to ask myself what caused me to do so bad in school. I quickly pinpointed the problem and said to myself that the next time I will control myself and dedicate a lot more time to school. I returned to school for the second semester. Many of my friends that had left with me did not return. In realizing this I saw this as a my chance to get back on track. I still had a few close friends come back, all with similar experience as me from the first semester. We kinda made a pact when we all got back, to do better and to help each other out.

Being in the first year, my friends and I, had a lot of the same classes together. So we figured that the best approach to doing better in school was to peer pressure each other into coming to the study groups were beginning to form. We later realized that although these study groups were cutting into are partying time, we were all still having a lot of fun with all of us there. We all ended up doing really well when the second semester ended. Making at least me, know that I belong here and that I could do it.

During that first year at college, I realized, more than I had ever before, who I was and what I was capable of. I realized that, one, I could no longer be the student that just scrapes by. I learned alot about the things that I want out of life, or at least a couple of them. One of them is that a college degree, not becuase it should make me more money or becuase it puts me on a different level than anyone else. But becuase I want to be holding that diploma in my hand to be able to tell myself that it wasn't so bad and that I did it. I did it, god I cant wait for that moment. Another thing that I realized, which maybe be the most important realization of my life is that. I know there is a plan for me. Something I know that is going to be great, possibly world changing.

Maybe I sound like everyone else out there with a dream or maybe not. But so what, at least we have a dream, unlike a lot of people that gave up on themselves and the world a long time ago. The difference between these people that are mad at the world, or just have an dream but no ambition to go get it and me is simple. I know that I want something, not sure exsactly what but a ruff outline, and that with my mind and my two hands I have all the tools I need to get everywhere and no where in life. All I have to do is, do.

I'm not sure if I have conveyed everything that is going though my head while I write this. I'm not sure if I sounded like I read off of a self help book. And I'm not sure what I am supposed to do in life. But I don't care, I know what I was trying to say and I know what I said was true. In my eyes, I am an entirely different person than what I expected growing up or when I was a freshmen at the University of Southern Indiana. Instead of engineering, I am now currently persueing a double major in business and planning on law school. This being something that never once entered my head growing up. Although this path I have chosen to fallow in my academic career sounds like what I am meant for, it still may not be final, as I have learned nothing is. But, the great thing is that I am ok with it all and that I can now embrace uncertainty, at least a couple aspects of it, with a smile and a push out of the way.

I no longer lose sleep thinking about the future and what I am going to do with my life. I have become more and more the person that I really want to be a happy one, someone that can look at their life and be content, no mater if they make a lot of money or get to travel the world. This being contrary to all that I knew and had been told all my life, that I need to do this specific thing or else my whole life will just be shambles. In the end I know that as long as the way I approach life and the way I live it is alright by me, that I am where I always wished I wanted to be.