By Miguel Gonzalez
Sports Editor
A new semester springs new opportunities to seize and desires to fulfil — a checklist full of ambitions like establishing a new club on campus, acing courses, losing weight, landing a competitive job or internship, asking someone on a date or simply maintaining your well-being.
The energy and confidence is glowing. You feel like drinking some yolks, putting on a gray sweatshirt and running to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. You feel like standing on the bow of the Titanic, screaming “I’m king of the world!”.
But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my time at the College, it’s always easier said than done. By spring break, you’ll already want to throw in the towel.
Sometimes, you just can’t improve your grades despite visiting the professor’s office, going to the tutoring center and splattering drafts with edits, or start a new club when the proposal at the Student Finance Board meeting didn’t work out. It’s hard to land an internship when the employer already threw your application away, and maybe that awkward date could have gone better.
Along the way there you will always have failures and shortcomings. I’ve learned that most people never achieved their goals because of high expectations and lack of patience.
You’re not going to have a 4.0 GPA tomorrow. Johnson & Johnson is not going to knock on your door with a job for you next week. You’re organization is not going to fundraise enough money for a spectacular gala in the Decker Social Space by next month.
The only thing I know that is certain is that every goal is about progress. Every ambitious goal is jam-packed with a subset of smaller goals. Something to do every day. Something to keep track of. Something that makes you motivated to wake up and realize that the dream is alive.
Will there be challenges and setbacks? No doubt.
Will there be a point where it’s easy to give up? No doubt.
Will you feel hopeless and uninspired at one point? Of course, but the goal still remains!
Be like Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers and trust the process. Trust yourself that every step you take is an effort to achieve your goal. If you do not believe me, just ask Philadelphia Eagles’ quarterback Nick Foles.
He used to be a backup for the St. Louis Rams (Now Los Angeles Rams) not so long ago. Now he’s facing former teammate Case Keenum and the Minnesota Vikings with a shot to the Super Bowl.
By keeping the goal in mind, nothing can’t stop you from seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
