Beginning to End by Brayden

Beginning to End by Brayden - April 2024 Scholarship Essay

Motivation is a very fickle concept. Many think of motivation as the drive to do something, and those with a lot of motivation may consider those without to be lazy. However, I don’t believe that to be true. People are motivated by a want to achieve something, and some people just have more that they desire to achieve than others. Some people just have more goals. I am one of those people. Sometimes I even think that goals are the primary thing I have in life, but that’s not a bad thing, on the contrary, it’s actually what helps me keep going.
Growing up my family didn’t particularly have a lot, and looking around was almost like my gaze was stricken with poverty at every chance it had to fill my retinas like filling up a glass of water. This, by itself, would have probably been fine, after all, you don’t know what you don’t have until you see it. Growing up in the age of social media though? It can fill your eyes with so much of the world that you never even knew existed, and suddenly the poverty that had kept my cup full for so many years began to pour out, and a new hunger took its place. I wasn’t satisfied with a life of scraping by with each penny for any and everything in life. While that motivation was good, it needed to be honed in and focused like a laser to be able to further my goals, because motivation without a target is just energy and drive going to waste.
The motivation I’d gained for want of a better life went to good use. My grades were exceptional as I threw myself into my schoolwork, attending academic functions, advancing myself in my school, and making a name for myself. I even managed to represent my school at a state competition in Columbia South Carolina for Entrepreneurship where I won 5th place. That same year I was elected senior class vice president by my peers. Yet, that still wasn’t enough for me. I was still hungry. With academics going well I shifted part of my focus onto a career, getting my first job my junior year, and that summer picking up a second job, and then when school started back in the fall I successfully managed to juggle two jobs and my schoolwork at the same time. Having such a prominent source of income, needing to worry less about finances, and the progress I made in my grades and school life were all major contributing factors as to why I’m going to keep pushing myself forward to pursue more. I want more out of life.
My academic goals now consist of graduating and attending college. I’m going to attend Lander University for my bachelor's degree in psychology, as psychology has always been a passion and interest of mine. I want to be able to help other people and make a living doing so. I stay focused on all of these things because I still have constant reminders of why I need to achieve these things. My family is still poor, and if I’m the first member of my generation to graduate high school and go to college then that will set a new standard for the rest of my family and prove that it’s possible to claw your way out of that hole, despite all the things that work against you.
My motivation to pursue, achieve, and shatter my academic goals is ultimately my upbringing, and my focus is derived from aiming that stream of motivation I’ve been given at a productive target rather than letting it slip away. I stay focused and continue going forward because I can’t afford not to, both figuratively and literally. Life doesn’t give many handouts to kids from my background, so instead of waiting around, on my knees, palms towards the sky, hoping for something to fall into my hands, I’ve decided to use those hands to grab at every opportunity I’ve been presented, because if I’m not looking out for myself then no one will.