Whenever I was a kid, I was always made straight As. I was always in the advanced classes. I loved school and I enjoyed learning. I hated to even get a B on something.

As I got older and into high school, I started to get bored with the lectures. I was bored with the homework assignments. I was bored because it just simply wasn’t challenging to me anymore. I enjoy being challenged.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t smart. It wasn’t that I lacked intelligence. It wasn’t that I lacked motivation. Not even close. Although, people may have let the hair fool them and think I was just another dumb blonde, that is clearly not the case.

Because I am smart and I am intelligent. I am incredibly motivated to succeed in life. I have a great deal of ambition that is rare to come by. For that, I am confident about.

I know what you’re thinking. I am sure you are thinking something along the lines of, “Okay, but you still have to go through high school. Everyone has to do it.”

Well, that’s not entirely true.

I have never been the type of person to follow the crowd. I usually have my own way of doing things and I like it that way. I like to lead my example, not follow others. I consider myself a leader, not a follower.

That started early on and it has, thankfully, followed me into adulthood.

When I was 15, I decided that I wanted to drop out of high school and get my GED. So many people have frowned upon me for that or looked down on me for it. People think less of a person who didn’t graduate high school.

People often say that getting your GED is not the same as obtaining a high school diploma or may have said I wasn’t smart enough to finish high school.

People have often referred to me as a “high school dropout.”

Although, there are many people who do drop out of high school for various reasons. Maybe they hated school. Maybe they were bullied. Maybe they had issues that they were dealing with at home. There are numerous possibilities, buy why should someone be shamed simply for taking a different path in life?

Maybe there are people out there who dropped out of high school because they were lazy and just didn’t want to do the work or didn’t want to go, but my path was different.

I was eager to learn. I was hungry for more knowledge. I wanted to be challenged more and high school just wasn’t doing that for me. I needed something more and something bigger. And I didn’t want to wait for it.

So, this “high school dropout” started got a full-time job at age 15 then she started college early.

She has since then graduated with her Associate’s degree.

She not only graduated with her Bachelor’s degree, but with honors.

And now she is half way through her Master’s program.

Be careful. Think twice before you judge someone. You never know someone’s story.

I am not ashamed to say that I didn’t complete high school because I was able to rise up and go much further than many people choose.

I am proud to say that I took a different path in life. I am proud of where I am and who I am.

If a person has the proper motivation and ambition to be successful, then nothing can stop them from achieving their goals.