"With Determination"
Jonathon Mudge
"Let me tell you the secret that has led to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity." This is a quote from Louis Pasteur and it truly speaks volumes to me about the power of perseverance in the face of utter defeat, helplessness and adversity. My life has never been easy, and there there have been times that I have felt like giving up. Despite many, many obstacles, I have refused to give up on life.
There is a point in everyone's life where they feel like giving up and calling it quits. I have always understood that as a simple fact of life. I have felt that way many times. People in general tend to develop dreams and desires based on many different concepts. What truly motivates the human race to make decisions that are based on something other than logic and reason? A common answer would be love or your dreams, and that answer makes plenty of sense to me.
My name is Jonathon Mudge and I’m a student of Lindsay High School, I’ve lived in Lindsay California for my entire life. I was born into a family of two, my mother and father. This quickly changed when they divorced around the time I turned 2 years old. After the divorce, my father gained custody of me and we moved in with my grandmother and grandfather. We’ve lived here ever since. I grew up around no other kids, I only had adults to interact with. So by the time I was going to school I was quite bright and knowledgeable for my age. I had a huge amount of trouble when trying to interact with kids who were my age, because it always seemed that it was easier to talk to and converse with adults rather than other kids. It was difficult to make any friends at all.
I learned over time that things were never going to be easy for me. I would get into trouble every day. I didn’t want to go to school because I knew something would happen that would cause me to cry. I hated crying in front of other people, and I also hated when people would take pity on me because I was so sensitive. I would do a lot of embarrassing things that would cause me problems later and make me look back and cringe. The worst part of my “childhood” was being bullied and being alone while also having to deal with conflict at home as well.
I’ve made so many mistakes in my life so far, and it’s been difficult, but I’ve always gotten back up, kept trying and kept giving things my best at the time. I pushed people away, I let people get under my skin, and I made it easy for people to hurt my feelings. I got into fights, the list goes on and on. I have been depressed and had seriously negative thoughts. I’ve been in dark places before, but I kept swimming, I overcame.
I never did set too many goals, though. A lot of the time, goals were made for me by others, and I was pushed in the opposite direction. Eventually, I only cared about goals I made for myself. I decided that these goals were the goals I can claim for myself. They mainly consisted of scholastic goals, such so that I could make it to high school and eventually acquire a diploma because I wanted to prove that I wasn’t stupid. Moving on to my life more recently, entering and going through High School, I have much more complex and challenging goals. For example, to graduate on time as well as to prepare myself for adulthood.
If I were to give any advice to someone about accomplishing goals I would make several things clear. Victory is not something you constantly wake up in the morning and feel. Every single day will be different. It’s extremely easy to go to sleep inspired and wake up with barely enough motivation to even dress yourself in the morning and get out of bed. You have to remind yourself of your goals, make progress, but at the same time be patient and steadfast. Never forget and never get distracted and led astray from your goals. Wake up and think about what the next step is that you need to take in your day that is going to make your dreams a reality. You must avoid desire to flee from the stress; instead, face it head on with tenacity and crush it. You don’t achieve your goals in one day or two or three or a month or a year or several years. You achieve them in a lifetime.