What do I do now?

When I first started high school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go in my life. Now that I am ending my high school career, I know the choices I want to make for my future, but I will always wish that I had known that when I was a freshmen. It makes me feel stupid that I was able to finally figure out what I wanted to do with my life in my senior year, and that I didn’t already have the idea inside of my head miraculously like everyone else did. It felt like I was the idiot for not knowing what I wanted to do and that I was slower and dumber then everyone else. There is zero truth to that for me or anyone reading or hearing this speech now. Everyone has that will in them to go just that much harder to achieve what their goal is, and it is your volition to go and push yourself to reach that point and beyond.

On a more personal note, I feel that I truly didn’t try enough in high school to get to where I want to be at in my life. There is so much more I could’ve done and achieved during my time in high school, and I wish I still had that time to go and fix what I was doing wrong. High school already felt like purgatory to me, and procrastinating and not pushing myself made me feel worse about myself and completely unmotivated to try and stay ahead or even to try and get back on task in the first place. There was zero motivation or hope before my senior year on doing my work on time or trying to figure out and focus on my future. And I hate myself for it, it pisses me off that I didn’t try harder and actually apply my brain towards meaningful things. It was so much wasted time in my high school life that I could’ve spent not procrastinating and focusing on what truly matters, the future. And I feel that everyone should try and focus not on what is bothering them or what might bother them the next day. Everyone should focus on their future and what they can do to advance it in the present time. We should all ignore out present problems and face our future(s), ready to take it on.

Anyone else who may be hearing or reading this, I have just one message for you. Don’t be like me AT ALL. Procrastinating and making your entire high school life harder then it needs to be is the worst. All it is is unnecessary stress and difficult nights for what reason? You have all your work done but at what cost? I feel like I was the laziest person ever in high school, but I shouldn’t let that dictate who I can become. And nobody should allow their high school performance to say how smart they are or how much you can achieve. You can always achieve something bigger than what you already have, NEVER tell yourself otherwise.

“1930 graduating class, University of Illinois College of Medicine” by UIC Library Digital Collections is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.