As I am on my flight from Paris back to the states, I feel the need to have one particular song on replay. I believe that it's because my life is transitioning into a new phase right now.
The chorus is sang by Mary J. Blige and goes like this:
I'm so high I can touch the sky
I know it's my time
And it's now or never
I shine so bright I light the night
And it feels so right, ain't nothing better
This name of this song is "Now or Never" by Kendrick Lamar ft. Mary J. Blige. Life is so good, and I honestly couldn't have worked towards my achievements without my support system. If it weren't for the people who believed in me, I wouldn't be having the time of my life right now. I came home to some pretty great news on March 21, when I learned that I was accepted into my dream school, Syracuse University!
Not only did I get accepted into my dream school, but I was also accepted into the very competitive Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse. While Syracuse is my dream school, I applied to many others. After learning of my acceptance to Syracuse, I received notification that I was declined from some of the other schools. But who cares? All I could think about was what the first home game in the Carrier Dome would be like.
Just when I thought that it couldn't get any better, I learned on April 4 that the NFTE (The Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship) Program will pay for my tuition for the next four years! I literally didn't know what to do with myself. What have I done that was so great up until this point that I deserve to have a full tuition scholarship to my dream school? It was very overwhelming to take in all the news, especially since I received everything around the same time. But after processing this news, I sat back and accepted the fact that I deserve this. I deserve this. I don't say this with a sense of entitlement or arrogance, but I have been working hard for as long as I can remember.
I am writing this so say that you can achieve whatever it is that you put your mind to. I know that this sounds cliché, but it's very true. I did experience self-doubt in the beginning of my college admissions experience, because I didn't have the highest SAT scores, and I was told by people who I thought were on my team that I wasn't capable of achieving my dreams. Due to this, I felt defeated. But that feeling didn't last for long. There were unexpected texts from my mother, for example, where she would tell me to envision myself at my dream school and to picture how my dorm room will look -- and this is just one of many examples.
From this point on, the only option was to get myself together. I have so many people rooting for me that their energy negates all of the negative energy. Many people have been working hard along with me, so why would I allow standardized test scores or a couple of people to define my worth? So I made sure that I went from "I think" and "I hope" to "I will." And with much prayer and anticipation, my dream has manifested into a reality.