Chris is taking his Statistics midterm this afternoon, and as he pored over his books this weekend, I was reminded of a test I took in high school worth $20,000.
Much of my junior year was heavily invested in goofing off. I played no sports, was not a member of any student clubs, and had no allegiance to any extracurricular activity.
Except my boyfriend at the time.
He was my first boyfriend, my first real boyfriend. The first one I went on an actual date with and who I introduced to my parents. I spent hours on the phone with him when I should have been studying. I whiled away class lectures scribbling his name on my notebook. I put off my homework, sometimes until minutes before the start of class and handed in sloppy, sub-par work. I felt ashamed for an hour, while I sat under the gaze of my teacher, but when the bell rang, I scouted the throngs of students milling about in the hall for him and my shame was forgotten.
I had somehow managed to get decent grades in most of my classes that year, but I could not bullshit my way through Algebra II. There is simply no way to pretend your way through a formula. At the time, it was the reason I had such difficulty in math. As a teenager, I believed everything should be negotiable.
For much of my life academics had come easy, almost effortless. I had assumed the same would be true in Algebra II, even though I invested no time in it. Perhaps the formulas would learn themselves?
The “Coming to Jesus”, the realization that I had to straighten up, along with the understanding that Algebra II held some significance outside of second period came to me three days before my final exam. After the class review for the test, I did a quick calculation and realized that, if I did not get an “A” on the final exam, I would get a “C” in the class. Which probably would not have been a huge deal, had I not spent my entire high school career up until then working toward one specific scholarship. It dictated that I earn a “B” or better in the class and laid out a very regimented set of courses. I was required to complete a certain amount of community service hours. And score a certain number of points on my SAT. I had my ducks lined up, and starting in my freshman year, I knew, I knew, I was going for this scholarship.
So I panicked.
Then I hit the books. The night before the test, I did every piece of homework I had ever missed that semester. I went over every question wrong from every test I had taken in the class. I drank coffee for the first time in earnest that night. I went through more pencil erasers than pencils. And finally, sometime around two in the morning, I had a break through. Things fell into place, and I started to really get it. I also realized for the first time ever that my teacher had not assigned homework as a cruel plot to wreck my social life. The stuff actually helped you learn, man.
I arrived at my final exam the next morning nervous and sweaty palmed. The first thing I did was to flip through the test to see how many pages I would have to get through. I nearly fainted as I counted them, page after page of algebra problems, all waiting for me to solve them. The test began, and I became engrossed. The formulas had been beaten into my head, though, and I felt mostly ready.
When the grades were ready, I nearly accosted my teacher. She seemed incredulous as she showed me my test: I had aced it.
Summer came; my boyfriend joined the Air Force, and left me for another girl. She had a kid and a drinking problem. At some point, I hear she lobbed a shoe at his head and he decided to make tracks. I do not know what came of him.
I began taking my studies much more seriously, and did indeed earn the scholarship, which paid my way through five years of revolving majors in college. Recently, I realized that had I scored less than an “A” on that test, I would be the proud owner of approximately $20,000 in student loans today.
After that test, I realized that I was the master of my own destiny. I had the power to change my own circumstances, and I could change them for the better or for the worse, but if I wanted to change them for the better, I would have to actually work a little. Invest a little. Stay up late sometimes, and put some stock in my own actions.
It was a humbling thought, to suddenly realize that sometimes in life there are moments that can make or break you. I had lived my life with the attitude that few things really, I mean, REALLY matter. Up until then, I was certain that my actions meant little, both in the scheme of things and in my own life. If you messed something up, it was almost always fixable. If you missed one chance, there was always another. I believed a life isn’t ruined in one moment, but in a series of unfortunate moments or bad decisions. But sometimes a moment, a single moment does matter, and a single decision, one solitary event can impact the rest of your life.
Those are the moments that steer the course of your life, that dictate how you make your way through the labyrinth of your existence, and ultimately, that determine who you turn out to be.
I don’t think life should be all seriousness and planning. But I do now realize that your life, your world, can change in an instant, and to the extent that you can make those rare but immensely powerful moments work for you, you should. In other words, take control of your own life, instead of letting life simply happen to you. Because meandering down life’s path, without questioning or realizing that you're even heading in ANY direction just might cost you $20,000... or more.
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