"You will never truly know yourself until you force yourself to be alone with yourself."

All of my life, I have lived fast pace and busily. It’s basically become a second nature. I’ve always been a sort of super-multitasker. I can handle multiple situations and jobs back to back and even sometimes at the same time.

So, of course, when I came to college, I applied for probably one of the busiest jobs a student can have, which is the roll of a Resident Advisor. I mean, why wouldn’t I apply? I was more than qualified for the job. I could handle huge loads of work and I was an amazing leader. Or, at least that’s what I thought. Which, left me extremely shocked when I didn’t get the job and a little angry .... okay, a lot angry.

One thing that I do admire about this whole process of choosing who makes it and who doesn’t, is that the Area Coordinators will allow you to know why you didn’t make it so that you can work on whatever the reason was. And, of course, I wanted to know exactly why I didn’t get accepted.

However, my attitude was changed I actually met with the Area Coordinator where I lived. She was very kind during our meeting, but yet very honest. She assured me that I had not done anything wrong during the actual process itself. She said that I actually did very well. So, yeah. You can imagine my bafflement at this point. I had a GPA that qualified me. I had a great resume. I had job and leadership experience and now I’m told I did well at the rest of the process? Then, why on earth was I not accepted?

Well, the next thing that she said will probably stick with me for the rest of my life. “Samm, we didn’t choose to not accept you based off of your performance during the process. We looked at the bigger picture. I’ve seen you change so much as a person just in the time that you have been here. But, you’re not done changing, yet. And you have to come closer to who you need to be before you can begin to help other people become who they need to be.”

This hit me in multiple ways. Mainly, because I did not see myself as a person capable of change. I didn’t realize I had changed any since the beginning of school. And I definitely didn’t think I would be able to change anymore for the better. However, I trust my area coordinator. I allowed what she said to begin the process. The first step is admitting that you need to change. That’s what I did, even though I didn’t know exactly where I needed to change.

It took me a while but I began to realize that that fast pace, busy life style I had become so accustomed to was the first thing that had to go. All of that itself is fine, but I was using it to distract me from the issues at hand. The more I worried about other things, the less I could worry about myself. Once that was muffled down a lot, I began to be stuck in my thoughts alone. This is where I began to see where I really needed to change. You will never truly know yourself until you force yourself to be alone with yourself. And boy, did I learn who I was.

All of the positive things I liked about myself, I soon learned there were negative counterparts that had to be dealt with. My enthusiasm had a large tendency be overbearing. My great characteristic of giving advice caused me to be extremely bossy. And I began to see my drive and determination as the stubbornness that wouldn’t allow me to bend my way of seeing things.

There are countless other things that I found. But, most important, I found that I was trying to eliminate the bad things about me for so long. Hence, the busy life that stood as a distraction. I can’t just eliminate them, though. They are part of who I am. However, I can balance them. Every person needs an equivalent amount of negative and positive characteristics to be in balance. And I can make sure my negative characteristics never outweigh my good ones and vice versa.

Since I have reached this part in my life where this has become clear to me, I have found that my enthusiasm and overbearingness has combined into passion. My advice giving talent and bossiness has formed into wisdom. And my determination and stubbornness to bend the way I see things has combined into the simple act of accepting all views but staying true to what I believe. But, most importantly, my negative and positive characteristics have combined to create inner peace.

So, in other words, me not being accepted as a Resident Advisors was probably one of the biggest blessing in disguise I’ve ever had. It took that small first step to begin my whole transformation. And, when I apply again, I’ll do it in confidence that I am much closer to the person I am meant to be. However, if the same thing happens again, I will take it as another opportunity to change even more for the better.