In my opinion, perseverance is doing something despite difficulty in order to achieve success. According to Merriam-Webster’s definition of persistence is “the quality that allows someone to continue doing something or trying to do something even though it is difficult or opposed by other people”. But what qualifies something as difficult? I feel differs person to person. For me, I struggle to be around people, even people I have known for a long time.

I feel as though everyone is staring at me, judging, even though I know no one is even glancing in my direction. All those eyes on me, I’m bound to do something ridiculous. I spent all of my middle school and high school career afraid to be myself and always trying to impress the other kids. It never worked and I made a bigger fool of myself than I ever could have by being myself, but still fear of disappointing random people is a fear of mine. I worked so hard at trying to making people like and accept me and it didn’t work.

I took two years to find myself and where I came from after high school because I was terrified of going to college. What would the other students say when I asked a question they thought was stupid? Would anyone talk to me? All of these questions swirled in my head. I was terrified. I knew I didn’t want to spend my college career kissing up to people and doing what I thought everyone wanted me to do, but how do I be myself and have enough confidence and strength. I decided to just take the plunge. I had already been trying to put myself in social situations more, so I thought why not?

I found an online article literally called “3 ways to be Persistent”, as I sat down to read it I noticed it was telling me to do many of the things I was already doing. The article told me to, little by little try to work on my goal, baby steps.

My first semester I took three classes. I took math, history and psychology. I figured three classes to get adjusted to the school setting again. I loved my classes. I loved the topics. I had always been great at math and psychology. History I was good at but never found an interest in.

First day of class, the most dreaded day for me. The day where you have to introduce yourself to the class. My first class was psychology, my professor finally called in me to introduce myself. “Hi, my name is Desirae. This is my first year at BCC and I have no idea what I want to study.” It felt like those tiny sentences took hours to come out. I could have even sworn I heard chuckles when I said I had no idea what to study. I sank back into my seat, I just had to keep thinking, “baby” steps.

The other classes went the same way, making me feel little and that I never should have come to school. I read another article that says persistence can be shaped by how you were raised. I thought to myself as I read that, “great, I have had about ten different families in my life and they all raised me different.” The more I thought about it, I was raised by many families and many values and lessons were taught, I could use that.

As the semester went on I became very interested in my psychology class, even sharing ideas and stories with the class. I started to feel safe even with all the people around me. The interest in learning about the subject made the people around me easier to handle. It wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns though.

My math class proved to be a bit tougher to handle. My professor quickly found out I was good at math. I then was constantly called to the board to show the other students how to do the problems. I could feel the hate from their eyes as I solved the problem. To make matters worse the professor once said, “If anyone has questions, ask her.” I was mortified. A few weeks into that class and I was already being called upon regularly.

The stares, whether there or not eventually really got to me. I stopped coming for a few classes. I couldn’t handle it. According to the article, I broke a big rule, stay motivated. I just had to start again, accept that I failed, and try again.

When I went back to math I was so far behind and I couldn’t catch up. I failed math. Failed. I failed only one class in my lifetime before. This was when I realized and became strong enough to say to myself that I am in college for myself, no one else. I knew I could do it because I had been doing it in psychology.  By the end of psychology class I was comfortable talking about controversial topics with the class. I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t care if they didn’t agree. I was starting to be myself. By the time the second semester began I knew I had to be me for me. I couldn’t fail another class because of people.

Although I am still shy I show up and participate. It’s a struggle every day I go to class. I just keep the goal of passing and bettering my life in my head. I know that I will never quite feel comfortable in front of strangers, but by pushing through it I become better at interacting with people on a daily basis, even people I know well. Striving for just a little ease and pushing through the pain to achieve my goals. That is the exact definition of perseverance.

 

Works Cited

“How to Be Persistent.” WikiHow. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2015.

“Not Just Smart, but Persistent as Well.” The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 19 May 2011. Web. 30 Mar. 2015.