Two years ago in a river of light pointed out by one of my best friends, my entire life came crashing down into one moot point: my entire life accomplishments were a joke. I was never one to really try hard. I wasn’t the best in my class, I never joined any clubs or participated in any contests, I was rubbish at sports and I never really tried to do anything with the small amounts of talent I really did have.

Everyone around me, from friends to close family, would say that I could accomplish something great if I put my mind to it. I could be the best in my class, as I was smarter than what my test results always screamed. I was a talented writer and a talented painter among others, but as much as all their words boosted my ego to a humongous state, as I grew older, even though vain I still was, little by little I started realizing, I was mediocre or even bellow that.

I wasn’t smart. There were people a million times more book smart than I was and social smart I never was in a million years, so I could say that anyone could be socially smarter than me. I wasn’t good at sports and I knew that, but I loved tennis and the entire struggling with it thing brought my entire inflated ego down, to the point where I could scream and cry in exasperation. And if you think about the writing thing, while great ideas I did have writing them down never seemed to work. Thus that screamed failure amongst others. As time passed by even the number of ideas I got came like one every few months.

I was in a crisis. I realized I didn’t know what to do with my life and even if I did think about it, it all came to the exasperating black hole of working in a burger joint for the rest of my life. The job situation back home is not all that good and unless you are one of the more socially active as well as smart people, well job wise you are at the lower bottom at most.

My friend (that made me aware of these things) was due to go to Korea to study in less than a few months. She would soon break free of these spiraling vortexes, while I was nowhere near close to that. I was in a crisis, I had no idea what to do, what course to take or anything, but with her help and support I came back to my desire from more than 6 years prior, going to study abroad.

You must realize that wasn’t an easy decision to make. Money was scarce and I have always lived at home, never away for more than 20 miles. Plus I was used to my mom solving all my problems. I was a lazy stupid bum, one that never did anything for herself, not even cook food or wash her clothes, all she ever did was vacuum her room once every 4 months. Not a pretty picture of a person, but she was happy, at the expense of those around her of course.