In either my Junior or Senior year of high school, I honestly cannot remember which, my school decided to revamp our cafeteria by adding some of the cheesiest quotes on metal sheets around the large room. Of course, putting this in a room of high schoolers doesn’t exactly do much productivity. I distinctly remember the cascade of voices making fun of the quote, already blasted in our gymnasium, saying, “Whatever you do, great or small, do it well or not at all.”

Imagine how well that went over.

It was also a well-received game throughout the hormone-induced students to add phrases at the end of the quotes to make them funnier. They were a product of comedy and humor, not of something meaningful.

Yet, somehow, those quotes made a difference. At the time they just seemed to be ridiculous words to make our school look way fancier than it really was. It didn’t work. However, there is one that still rings in my ear and that I can still remember the exact placement of it in the room. It reads:

“When you’re at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”

I probably remember it most due to my making fun of it and saying that the concept of tying a knot when you’re at the end would be quite difficult if there’s no more excess rope to tie the knot with.

Did I already tell you I was in high school at the time?

Either way, the quote still comes back to me this many years later. I still think about it and what it means. I know now that I hung onto that rope that was high school until I could climb back up. While climbing I pressed through getting into college and moving away from home. I slipped a little and got burned when it seemed like I couldn’t make it through college, but I’m still climbing. But do you know why I’m still climbing?

It’s because I don’t want to be hanging onto the end if that’s all life has to offer.

I want to climb through those difficult moments and breathe the air that’s a little higher up. I want to feel what it’s like to not be holding onto the edge. I want to feel solid ground beneath my feet, then continue to go higher through more difficult terrain if it means I’m still able to grow. I want to get the cuts and bruises that come with getting old and growing up.

I desire to do all of these things not just to make myself better, but to be able to help someone else who might be at the end of their rope and finding it a little harder to hang on.

In Hamilton, there’s a song called “The World Was Wide Enough” where Alexander Hamilton says the line, “Legacy. What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden never get to see.” I believe my legacy will be formed by the passions I pursue while living and what actions and influence they turn into even after I’m gone.

I promise I’m not having a quarter-life crisis.

I just believe that I have climbed my rope nearly to the solid ground, but I still need to keep climbing. Gripping a rope with your hands and supporting your weight while climbing is an act of desperation. Using your legs to climb onto higher ground and through rough terrain is an act of determination. At this point in my life, I’ve decided to use my past experiences to continue to grow and work on this legacy I will one day leave. That is why I am doing these drives.

What good is climbing higher if you can’t later help someone else to do the same?

And if absolutely nothing else, I can say that I held on and know that I, even if only for myself, made a difference.