D A R E   T O   A C H I E V E      

EVER BEEN SO SCARED...

That you never wanted to push yourself to your goals or dreams because you could fail? How about because you don't believe you're good enough?

I WAS.

I was scared to try and go passed high school. I didn't come from an upper class family. I was a food stamps kid and my mother always had more than one job seeing as she was a single parent of three. I am not ashamed of our life we once had but I never wanted the burden of college loans, the burden of money upon my mom as if it wasn't already there. I was never a A+ student or even a B+ student, I was an average C student. I didn't play average sports or do tons in my community. I was just another teen going through the basics of the education system. Who was I to be spending money to go to college? Sure, I had dreams...but waitressing would get me by enough to survive, right?I never imagined myself as a college student, hell I barely saw myself as a high school student. College just never seemed possible for someone like myself. I am a nobody.

I started high school, with no goals or ambitions. Dreams were just pointless thoughts that took up space in my mind. Until I learned that someone out there, near or far, does care about your success. Someone wants to see you go to graduation and then further yourself and go to college. One of those people happened to be my Agricultural teachers, Mr. Farr. He made me see that I am someone, and that I can and WILL go off to college. Only when someone found the faith in me did I find the faith in myself. From Mr. Farr on I found more people who believed in me. From that moment on I set a goal and that was to go to college.

College visit after college visit, I found and applied to several in hope for an acceptance letter. I waited and waited only to receive the mail. Not the mail I had been hoping for.

We are sorry to inform you but your application has been rejected... 

I was heartbroken and my goals had been crushed. Letter after letter, they all read the same. Many had claimed I wasn't academically ready...I wasn't smart enough. My once so beautiful dreams, destroyed with twelve words. I couldn't even dream to go anymore.

However, even though I had given up...the people who believed in me hadn't. They pushed me to keep looking, they pushed me to find a college that would take me. I painfully kept looking at colleges. I changed my career path several times, my plans and my dreams. The rejection letters continued.

Until...

Olivia Alden,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to the University of Maine at Fort Kent...

I had done it. I was accepted into a college and I was going to be a college student. Pride had threaded through my entire soul and being. I had achieved the one believed to be impossible. I was going to be a somebody. The college and my own high school had given me over three thousand in scholarships.

This may not sound like much but this is my story of hope and daring to dream. So many people out there don't believe in themselves and give up on what they want. All I have to say is don't and look at the people around you and who they once were. You can achieve great things. 

Remember:

Harry Potter was once just a boy who lived in a broom closet under the stairway...