Summary

This was an enlightening night for me and I am excited about the future. I am a firm believer of if you want something hard enough in life, you'll achieve it. Sometimes this comes with a cost and that consists of two things for myself personally. Hard work & lost of sleep.

I recall back in 2013, college did not seem very appealing to me. Yet, I did it anyway. I did terrible during the placement test and was placed at the bottom level of both math and English courses. After mapping out my courses and set date of graduation with my counselor, he said it would be "impossible" for me to graduate within two years because of low level of placement I was in. In addition, he also told me that most students at community college don't graduate on time. 2 years later in 2015, I graduated.

The year 2016 came by, I enrolled into Uni and my academic advisor also had a similar standpoint with my old counselor. I came to the Uni with the mindset that I will graduate out of here within 1 year. She told me that "I do not think summer is right for you," in referencing to me graduating. Next month, I will be graduating.

Moving on.

Back in 2016, I met a very great friend Vera, a VERY hardworking and respectable person. He worked 80+ hours a week, balancing two full time jobs while supporting a family, a wife and two lovely kids. There are 24 hours in a day. Which means he works 16 hour days for FIVE days in a row. How many actual hours of sleep does he have? Don't include drive times from house to job, job to job, job to back home. You can do the math. Anyways, so one time, I was stuck doing a 16 hour shift one time and had to pull a double because someone called off. I remember complaining to him of how tired I am, and even when I work hours that are above 40+ hours a week (6 days/week); he told me "I remember my first part-time job," and I'd tell him to shut up because I was a bit offended and we would laugh about it. He was basically referencing of 1 full time job = part time job. After looking at him and reflecting on myself, I am like how can he work 80+ hours and not complain about it while I work half his hours and still talk about how tired I am? This is when I began to realize that my mentality needs to change. Last semester, I took 21 college units while balancing 3 jobs (1 full time, 2 part time). Yes, it was hard. Very, very hard and I am still at those three jobs today while full time in Uni.. So thank you, Vera! You're my model of what genuine hard work really is!
The moral of the story is not for me to sit here and brag about what I've done. The moral of the story brings me to share with you on four things.

1. Don't let anyone dictate you on how your life will be.
   People in life will tell you what you can or cannot do. People will doubt you. It is ultimately up to you to lead your own life and not live by the doubts of others. This will be a recurring issue as we ALL progress in life, and I am certain I will experience it many more times, and so will you.

2. Don't be afraid to fail, take the leap of faith.
   Afterall, we do not learn from our success but more from our failures. If you do not try, the answer will always be no. And if you do try, AND fail; that is ok. Because you got to remember, we get stronger through our failures NOT success. Just take a look at Jack Ma, one the most RICHEST billionaires alive. He was rejected from Harvard TEN times, turned down for over 30 jobs, finally decided to launch a company, company NEARLY went bankrupt, to finally turning it into a billionaire dollar industry.

3. Quit making excuses and complaining.
   I often hear hear about how people complain about how tired they are after working your standard 30-40 hours a week and I get a little reflection of myself like "Was that really me last year?" I think, you got to be joking. Unless you work for hard physical labor such as construction then I can understand (but even then, I know some guys who work in the construction business who works tremendous amount of hours and never complain). It's all about your mentality and your applied approach. If you stay within that mentality, of "oh I am so tired," you will never know and understand what the true value of hard work really is. This does not apply to the elderly, disabled, nor those with certain medical conditions. Unless you are young, NO EXCUSES!

4. Make USE of your time wisely.
   Benjamin Franklin once said, "If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail." We all heard of that saying at least once in our lifetime. There are 24 hours in a day. How many hours are you spending at work? What time are you coming home? What will you do then? And what will you do afterwards and afterwards? The biggest downfall I see within young adults are procrastination, excuses as to why something was not done or completed, and WAY to much play-times, or "having fun." You'll definitely feel it later in life if you fail to plan. On a lighter note, it is ok to every once in awhile treat yourself out.

Life is what you make it folks, dream big and make it happen!