I Once Came Across a Proverb Regarding

I once came across a proverb regarding life which stuck in my head more than the usual mix of sayings and advice one might encounter in his or her time. The proverb read ?Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.? I will always remember that saying not only for the fact that I have it written down for safe keeping, but also because I found it at the time I needed it most during my collegiate career. What appeared to be most dire situation during college turned out to probably be the most significant event during my college days. Although it is difficult to pinpoint the exact event which I consider to be the most significant, I can say for sure that it was the culmination of a collection events which I consider to be most significant to my development as a student. The culmination of events I am referring to is the time I pulled myself out from under a deluge of work with nothing more than my own self-motivation and a fear of failure. I remember the weekend being especially cold fall during my first semester at college. I knew I had been procrastinating a little more excessively than I had in the past due to the fact that I had been enjoying the experience of having the freedom college provided. I knew that I had a few major papers due around the same time, but had neglected to realize that the time they were due was all in the same week. It had also skipped my mind that there would be the other usual homework in those classes as well. The weekend came and I had the usual teenager-at-college plans. I knew in the back of my mind that midterms had just passed and the due dates for my papers was fast approaching, but the amount of work I actually had to do didn?t hit me until I was walking to my friend?s house by myself that cold Friday night. I particularly remember the weather because when I realized what I had to do I stopped dead in my tracks, mouth agape, and just felt the cold air blow right through me. To this day I do not know if it was an actual gust of wind or just the chill of realizing the amount of pages I needed to type by this time next week was about triple the amount of years I had been alive. I do distinctly recall standing still in the night and a definite cold air running through me. I am not sure how long I stood there motionless, but I do recall exactly what was going through my mind. My first thought was to go through with my plans for the evening and then just get to work on Saturday. I knew that it would be very easy for me to cancel my plans for Saturday and just work as hard as I could for as long as I could that Saturday and Sunday. If I was finished by Sunday night I would have a clean slate on Monday, as far as term papers were concerned, and that I would just have to find time during the week to complete the homework which was assigned each night. I could even come up with an excuse here or there to get an extension on some of the work I needed to do. One option I did not have was coming down with an ?illness? and gaining an extension by not attending class. My term papers were due and I did not want to get on my professors? bad sides by missing class on the designated due date for term papers. So that was it. I decided to go enjoy myself one last night before cracking down the upcoming weekend. As I walked to my friend?s house that Friday night I could not get the massive task at hand out of my mind. I was budgeting my time in my head and setting up a plan of attack. I could conduct all my research on Saturday and then type all day Sunday. I could also just go one paper at a time in the order of the classes I had that week. I would do Monday?s paper first while saving my late Thursday class? paper for last. I had options when it seemed at first like options were the last thing I had in my arsenal. As I approached my friend?s doorstep I just could not shake the responsibility of having all this work in front of me for the upcoming weekend. It was true that I?d have to struggle for a few weeks and my social life might have to be curbed for a while, but the time frame worked out. I just kept repeating to myself that the time frame worked out. But then it all came to me. The one thought that came into my mind that changed my work ethic incredibly from that point on: what if something went wrong? It sounds like a fundamental point to think of when it comes to something as important as schoolwork and term papers, but in my moment of duress it had not occurred to me that something in my grand plan might go wrong. What if I was unable to find the information I needed to find? What if I had to make an unscheduled trip to the library? What if I was sidetracked by some other unforeseen occurrence during the week? This epiphany caused me to reconsider my initial plan and, much to the chagrin of my closest friends, return to my schoolwork to take care of the task at hand. That night I did not sleep. I returned home to my mountain of work and became possessed. Not only did I feel the need to complete my work , but I felt the need to complete it on a level that I had never reached before. I tasted the satisfaction of a job well done, of conquering insurmountable odds, before I had even begun and it tasted sweet. I knew the sense of accomplishment I would feel would justify the hard work I had put into my papers and homework. I finished my work that weekend with some minor distractions and diversions. I finished it beyond the requirements laid out by my professors and I was proud of it. Not only was I proud of the work I had done but I was proud that I had learned what my professors had intended for me to learn. Up to this point in my collegiate career this has been the one event which has shaped the way I look at work and time management. While procrastination may be a trait which runs in most humans, including myself, I had never let myself get as far behind as I did that weekend. By leaving my friend?s house that Friday night to return home to a research marathon I accomplished the work at hand and also gave myself the realization that time management is essential in both life and college. I learned this through overcoming long odds that weekend. Looking back on that weekend, I know that I put myself in a somewhat overwhelming situation. However, by reacting the right way to that situation and completing my work on time, I came to know for a fact that the way I reacted to my situation changed my life for the better. And we all know that it is how you react to the situations you are thrust into that shape your life, not the situations themselves.