Throughout my lifetime, I have encountered my share of ups and downs, tough times and heart breaks, as well as losses and gains. None of these past experiences ever mentally prepared me for the next step of my journey,

Graduation.

Our school education is important nobody can deny it. Many view it as tedious, some frustrating, others heartbreaking, and plenty view school as stressful. We start when we are young from preschool to kindergarten, then to elementary school to middle school, from that middle school to high school, and finally the transition from high school into college. The last transition creates a mix of emotions for everybody. Some become more motivated than they have ever been, others become afraid of failure, but everybody feels stressed at some point in this process. We study hard to create a future for ourselves, and our future families. Yet, sometimes we feel we are going down the wrong path, and we have to start over to realize what we are truly destined to be.

I know I had to.

I started off attending a community college because it was closer to home and more affordable. A couple months went by, and my mindset had not changed since high school. I would wake up, go to school, come home, go to sleep, and do it all over again the next day. I was not happy with the choice I had made. I dropped out of college, devastated and disgusted with myself. I felt like I would never become successful or happy if I never graduated college. I took a couple years off thinking about school, worked in a couple different jobs, made some money, and slowly regained my confidence. I felt happy but I knew that I still had to graduate college to cross the next bridge of my life. I had money, I had success in the job than I was in, but I still was missing a part of me, and the I realized that my success doesn't equal my happiness, it just creates the illusion of it.

I played golf in high school, and after that I played when i could. I loved golf, it was something I was passionate about, something I enjoyed, and something I was knowledgeable at. I started looking for schools in the south-eastern part of the United States, because I knew that was where the season was year-round. I applied for a couple different golf programs around the Carolina's area. I picked one in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. This year, I will graduate college and earn my degree to pursue my life goal of earning my PGA of America membership, and I could not have been happier with the choices I have made to make it all possible.

These choices will not come easy to most of us. The choice to live 500+ miles away from the place we have called home as a child will never be easy. It isn't meant to be easy. It is meant to challenge us and force us out of a comfort zone as kids to grow and live out the rest of our lives as adults. No matter how hard you try in high school, you can never be mentally prepared for the circumstances college with throw at you. There are curveballs and winding roads that you will never see coming. You have to adapt, learn to grow, accept defeat, and create success. There have been many close friends I have had to say goodbye to, and not because it made me happy, but because it had to be done to create success for me. In order to focus on your future, you need to figure out your present. Forget about the past, focus on the present, and create your future. Your life is yours to live and the time you have in it you should do everything you can to make it count.

We all have one life, lets make it count.