Working for Joy by Brooke

Working for Joy by Brooke - August 2014 Scholarship Essay

I was crying my eyes out, certain that my life was over. I had failed Pre-Algebra in seventh grade. My mom was irate with me. I had not failed Pre-Algebra because I had flunked any single quiz or test. I had failed because I had skipped homework. For nearly the entire school year. I was twelve years old and an academic disappointment to my entire family. In that moment, I felt as though nothing would ever be all right again. I would never recover. Yes, my mother was upset with me. As bad as that was, there was still something worse.
My dad.

He wouldn't get home from work until 4:00 in the evening. It was only 11:30 in the morning. I stared out the window of my room, tears cascading down my cheeks. For a moment, I studied the pure blue sky and jewel green grass, trying to make my eyes dry up. But every time I tried not to think about it, the whole event of my mother discovering what I had done came back to mind. I cried again, vaguely wondering as I did why it didn’t rain outside as well. I felt so wretched. Didn't it always rain when the characters in books wept as well? After I had cried for a good thirty minutes, I solemnly ate lunch and endured the remaining time I had to wait until my father got home from work. I fearfully wondered if my mom had called Dad yet and told him about me and my unmitigated failure.

To my astonishment, my dad was not angry at all. He took me onto the hill in our backyard and had a serious conversation with me, making sure I knew what I had done wrong and what I would have to do to make everything all right again. Since I had virtually not done any of my homework for Pre-Algebra I would have to make it up that summer. I would have to do it all, from start to finish. I would have to work on it every day until the text book was completed. That summer, I came to a full realization of what discipline and responsibility truly are. Every morning of that long, long summer, shortly after breakfast, I had to force myself to get out the hated yellow text book that said Pre-Algebra in fat green letters. I had to open it and, one by one, work out the horrible numbers and letters into some form of an answer before going and showing my mother to see if I got any answer right. If I did not get them right, she would go over them with me again. Sometimes, it was extremely difficult. Sometimes I just wanted to give up and cry. But I kept reminding myself that I had done this to myself. I had to do this to pass seventh grade.

That summer taught me that discipline is doing the hard thing you don’t want to do but is necessary to do over and over again. That summer taught me that responsibility is shouldering your burdens every day when you wake up and soldiering through any trial that may arise, no matter how insurmountable that trial may seem to be. Immaturity is doing what will make you happy in the moment and despising all the things that won’t give you a feeling of happiness. True maturity is pinning a dream to the future and working hard to achieve that dream, regardless of the obstacles that fall in the way. True maturity is smiling in quiet contentment while you work for that dream, knowing that someday you are going to achieve it.
Though I did not realize the important lessons I learned the summer I learned them, looking back I can see that my failure taught me more than any success would have.

I now know that the joy that will come in the future cannot be compared to any temporal happiness that I have to give up in the present. Working hard for my dream will make my achievement so much sweeter. The years that it will take to achieve it will make me all that more determined. Any mistakes that I make along the way will teach me something better than success ever would have. And I know that–someday—the dream I have been working so hard for will finally come to fruition.