Everyone sets out to accomplish happiness and personal growth. Growth from a psychological standpoint for me, was simply doing any task that I did not want to do. Discipline and adversity were two values that I learned as a young adult working in the heating and air-conditioning industry. The intangible assets I obtained far outweighed the pay. The problem solving skills and the blue-collar mentality helped sculpt my views about progress and development as an indivdual. Achieving success became simple because I just started doing the things that I did not want to do, the things that no one wanted to do. Working out six times a week while on a low-carb diet, repairing furnaces in attics during the summer, studying on Friday nights. I was doing these positive tasks because of this inner hate of breaking my discipline. After a while these tasks became habit, and learning to love the things I hated is what manual labor taught me. The only way to become comfortable with myself was to step outside my comfort zone.
With this viewpoint on life everything feel into place during my undergraduate studies, grades, ice hockey, even relationships. It seemed that anything that was initially daunting or intimidating could be shelled by this conditioned mindset. That was until August 4th, 2012. This was the day my mother exposed that she had been sexually assaulted. We talked the next couple of days, as she became suicidal. It soon became apparent that now was the time to see if I truly have grown psychologically. I’ve battled adversity and taught myself to turn a negative situation into a positive situation. However, now was the most important time to prove it to myself, but more crucially to my mother. After excessive tears and graphic, horrid stories that no son should here about any female, let alone there own mother, she wanted me to come with her to get a restraining order. Walking into the courthouse the next week, it finally hit me like a ton of bricks. This might be my first experience in the field of law, although it certainly could have happened in a less depressing way. Nevertheless, I looked up to the sky with a sense of guarded optimism.
The officer announced our last name and we entered the courtroom. I was nervous not because of the atmosphere but because of the mental state of my mother. She was not competent to speak on her behalf, and she could not elaborate on the necessary facts.
The judge became impatient and this made my mother more panic-stricken. So, once again, I did something that I did not want do. I raised my hand and the judge called me out from the audience section. My heart was racing, palms sweating, and I could hear my breathing. He stated the classic oath, and being substantially nervous at the time my voice cracked upon responding. He then proceeded to ask if I had any input in regards to mother’s situation. This is where the entire setting changed, a negative into a positive, a dismal into a beautiful. I finally felt the power of articulateness, eloquence, and rhetoric. The aspects that attract and motivate me to pursue my goal of practicing law one day. The simple mindset I established as a young adult has kept my mother alive and hopeful. Furthermore, this experience has not changed me but solidified the values that will aid me through law school.
