Spring Break
Appreciate moments where life becomes the antagonist in life story: Overcoming hurdles makes bitter taste sweeter
Sara McIntosh
Issue date: 4/22/08 Section: Viewpoints
One of the most important lessons I can appreciate as holding the most substantive value while here at UTM is this: I realized who I am, what I am all about and how much I can endure in order to realize a dream. Granted, those seem trivial to most people because of the Hallmark card quality behind them, but I am at a loss of words (for once) for truly expressing the meaning of my college experience.
Hurdles. We all have them and at times we are not capable of seeing ahead because the hurdles are so burdensome and well suited to breaking a person's character that it appears as if there is no relief for the ache felt all the way down in the soul. At times those hurdles can be the breaking point for most normal people; yet, relief exists within the moments of vindication and validation when the hurdles fade away and you can revel in your own satisfaction of defying all the odds or hurdles and accomplish something most would have quit dreaming of a long time ago.
College for me was the hugest hurdle because I didn't care when I first came as a freshmen in 1999 (yes I am really that old). Everyone else wanted me to experience college, and I expected this epiphany that would answer all of my questions that were left unanswered after graduating high school. It wasn't until I worked in a factory when I began to realize that those questions, nagging and burning as they were to be answered, only became devoid of existing as I tramped on the mundane entity of my life being wasted away pounding the pavement and revolving around the element of time.
Everyone always told me, including my superiors at my job, that once you leave college you'll never go back, ever. Those people, as mean spirited and miserable as they were, served as my inspiration and my driving force to return to college. It wasn't until I returned that I realized that my college experience was a personal vendetta I had to revisit; however, this time I had every intention of proving something to the one person who doubted me the most, questioned my motivations every time and failed to believe in my capabilities: ME.
Hurdles. We all have them and at times we are not capable of seeing ahead because the hurdles are so burdensome and well suited to breaking a person's character that it appears as if there is no relief for the ache felt all the way down in the soul. At times those hurdles can be the breaking point for most normal people; yet, relief exists within the moments of vindication and validation when the hurdles fade away and you can revel in your own satisfaction of defying all the odds or hurdles and accomplish something most would have quit dreaming of a long time ago.
College for me was the hugest hurdle because I didn't care when I first came as a freshmen in 1999 (yes I am really that old). Everyone else wanted me to experience college, and I expected this epiphany that would answer all of my questions that were left unanswered after graduating high school. It wasn't until I worked in a factory when I began to realize that those questions, nagging and burning as they were to be answered, only became devoid of existing as I tramped on the mundane entity of my life being wasted away pounding the pavement and revolving around the element of time.
Everyone always told me, including my superiors at my job, that once you leave college you'll never go back, ever. Those people, as mean spirited and miserable as they were, served as my inspiration and my driving force to return to college. It wasn't until I returned that I realized that my college experience was a personal vendetta I had to revisit; however, this time I had every intention of proving something to the one person who doubted me the most, questioned my motivations every time and failed to believe in my capabilities: ME.
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