Over the next couple of weeks, I will be sharing goals with you and will WELCOME comments and encouragement! I am attending a Goal Workshop tomorrow night, and I hope that it will spur me on to really thinking about what I fully want. Not what my parents think I should have, not what my friends are doing, not what my peers judge me into doing. What Ruth Wants To Do.
Over the last few months, I really have been rolling that around in my head – what is it that I really want to DO with my life. In my early 20’s, it was to get married and show people that I didn’t have to have a degree to get anywhere. I was SO adamant about that point. SO! And I still think it is crazy for something jobs to discount experience for time spent in college. After all, I technically spent 4 years and PLENTY of credit hours. But in this world, I can’t force people to think the way I do. So, I am caving and getting a degree….10 years after the first time I started. 10. Full. Years.
GOAL 1 in 2013 (to be completed by December, 2013)
Graduate college at UAB with a Marketing Degree.
That means I have to take eight classes in 2013.
That means this spring, I am taking three classes.
That means this summer, I need to take two or three classes (depending on what is available)
And that means hopefully just two in the Fall of 2013.
And while that sounds like a lot to most people, to me, I just have to stay focused. I’m Broke As A Joke, so travelling doesn’t hasn’t been an option. And I have spent the last 10 years being (relatively) footloose and fancy-free. I’ve had worse. So what is one really tough, busy, mentally hard year. I will tell you what – it seems like NOTHING compared to the emotionally hard years of 2008-2010. Mental strength, I can find.
This goal is a perfect example of falling down 7 times. I really haven’t EVER been public about this – if you point-blank ask me, I would tell you. But I certainly don’t even like to tell people this piece of information. It automatically prompts two responses: I thought you had one or Why didn’t you finish? The first statement making me feel inadequate about lack of education albeit PLENTY of hardcore experience. The second question is just never fun to answer…but it usually goes like this: I was supposed to graduate a semester early as I came into college with 14 credit hours (a full semester) based on my High School education. I wanted to take off a semester and work or do SOMETHING other than school because I was freaking out about being 21 and having to get a full time job. At the time, I was fully advised (told straight-up) just to finish school and get it over with. And in one of my better bits of rebellion, just decided to fail school instead. Go ahead. Just read that again. To be honest, I don’t really know if it was a conscious decision or one I just let happen, but I received a 68 in a class that I had to have a 70 to graduate. The best part? If I had just attended class, if I had JUST SHOWED UP to class, I would have graduated. My sorry a$$ decided that I didn’t want to. So I tried talking to three teachers and no one would help me (I don’t know that I would have either). It is one of a HANDFUL of regrets that I have. Not one that I focus and morn every day, but one single event that if I could go back and change I would. But let’s be honest….would I go back to being 21? Uhhh, NO. I can’t think of a worser time to go back to! I happen to like 30, and graduating college NOW is going to mean something that graduating then NEVER would have.
Fall Down Seven, Get Up Eight 