I try my best every day. I like to follow the mindset of, “If I can’t do 400 push-ups, I’ll hit the dummy 800 times! If I can’t hit the dummy 800 times, I’ll do 2000 jump ropes!” Thanks for that quote, Rock Lee. I don’t think that I’m really smart or that I work harder than everyone else. Anyone has the capability to work harder and put in the effort — so I spend a lot of my days wondering what it is that makes me unique. To be honest, nothing, really. I just try my best.
In high school, I definitely did not try that hard on my studies. I didn’t know what I wanted to be in the future because I didn’t even know what my future could look like. I didn’t like math (actually, I really despised it because I didn’t get it), I wasn’t that good at science (especially not physics) and I wasn’t top notch at history. I was a mediocre student — always wanting to do better but never quite getting there. As you can imagine, that really sucked. I thought I just wasn’t capable of being a top student. My peers always did better than me. I was happy enough to get an 80 on a test, but everyone else around me was getting 100s without even studying. I would always wonder, what am I doing wrong?
I think it’s kind of a miracle that I got into college. I didn’t think that I wouldn’t get into any colleges, but I wasn’t expecting too much. Though, it was really humbling to see the people around me get scholarships and into their dream schools. That made me wish I tried harder in high school.
Then, my first year of college started. I was so unbelievably scared; I wanted to be a diligent student who never missed a single homework assignment (I used to forget to do my homework way too often and would scramble to do it during lunchtime). I kept thinking, but what if I fail? What if I fall back into old habits, what if I don’t have the capacity to do well in school?
But, I ended my first semester doing pretty well. Same with my second semester.
Then came sophomore year, and I tried harder than I ever had in my entire life. People kept telling me, “Gen chem is going to kill you, it’s the hardest thing you’ll ever take!!!” Well, I’m here to say that if even I, the least gifted math and science student, could get through both gen chem classes with flying colors, anyone can do it (if you work really hard). I know that there are way harder classes coming, but I really hate people who say, “You’re going to hate this class! I didn’t do that well, so you’re probably not going to do that well either. It’s really hard.” Like, yeah, obviously it’s going to be hard! But I’m still going to try my best, you know? I appreciate the heads up, but I just don’t like people who think that our experiences are going to be wholly the same; saying those things don’t seem to serve any real purpose. Everyone learns differently.
I doubt myself really often and worry about whether I’m working hard enough, but looking back at the person I was in high school and the person I am now, I’m really proud of how far I’ve come. I’ve gone from someone who misses all her homework assignments to someone whose family tells her to “stop studying so much.” There’s no such thing as not being naturally gifted enough. Trying your best is what counts. Just like Rock Lee said, if you can’t do the whole essay, do part of it. If you can’t do the full reading, read one sentence. If you can’t study the whole flashcard deck, study five flashcards. Something like that.
You’re trying your best, and that’s what matters.
Kate Sum
Editor-in-Chief
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