Essay On Back To School Personal

I have recently learned that life is our greatest teacher and I’ve learned that difficulties I did not ask for and challenges I had not been prepared for can suddenly appear and cause you to suddenly shift priorities in order to deal with pressing emergencies.
The last year of mine has been both the most difficult year of my life, but also the most illuminating. I dealt with things that I never imagined having to undertake. I also wondered if I was following the right path, if pursuing higher education was really for me or if I should not pursue some other path. These challenges tested the limits of my abilities, and I am proud of how I dealt with it. During the period of my life when I was in primary education, I did not value education as much as I do today. This is not altogether surprising since school at the time was just another thing that adults forced you to do and that you have a choice in. As an adult now, and as a professional, I see the worthwhile value that education has and I have a desire to pursue it both in the formal setting of a university, and also as a personal dedication that I carry with me.
When I think about the place and time where I live today, I can’t help but consider myself fortunate to have at my disposal the ability to education myself. So many in other cultures and countries today and in other time periods did not have that ability.
Too many individuals think of work as a chore they must do in order to survive. Professionally, I have changed my thinking on this into thinking of a professional career, or self-owned business, or job as an opportunity to live out the most self actualized version of the self. I, and many other, live in an age of opportunity. These opportunities are both educational and professional. I have a choice that many others do not, one in which I can go back to school and pick my course of study to give myself the skills required to have the career of my choosing. While this requires a lot of work and commitment on my part, it is also empowering, opening up any door that I choose to persistently knock at.
Specifically, there was one instance in my personal life which has affected me deeply over the summer. I was sitting at a restaurant and in the table next to me there was an older woman seated with a little girl who seemed about ten years old. Presumably, they were grandmother and granddaughter. Because I was at the adjacent table, I could not help but to overhear their conversation. The grandmother asked the granddaughter if she was excited to be going back to school. The granddaughter said that she was not. “I hate school,” she said. With a warm voice the grandmother explained to her how that was too bad. That when she was her age not all girls went to school. She also said that people who opt out of school end up becoming impoverished. The girl listened and the grandmother asked some question about things that she did like about school. The girl mentioned recess and art class and that she liked it when the teacher read to the class.
I thought a lot about this in my own context. I thought not just about the old woman, but also about the importance of gratitude before the opportunities. Even assignments and classes that feel like a burden are opportunities for which I should be grateful to have.
Going back to school now, it is important to set goals and decide what it is I want from this. What matters to me is that I am being challenged to go outside of my comfort zone. Things that come easy are not always things that are worth pursuing. It is only after a long, arduous journey that a person can really breath a sigh of relief and feel the pride that comes with accomplishing something worthwhile.
Education is like that. You do not walk a mile all at once, you do it one step at a time. With education all you can do is learn one thing at a time, read one book, study for one test, and so sometimes it seems that the light at the end of the journey is very far away. But these small bits of knowledge accumulated all add up to an what we refer to as a person’s “Education.” I don’t want to miss out on maximizing my potential. Recently I read an article about the five things that people regret at the end of their lives. One of those things was spending too much time working. I want my work to also be my passion and I want to give a priority to things that matter. Self actualization in both an educational and professional environment is certainly a good way to do that, and this year I am dedicated to working my best towards that.