As I sit in the cold chair in the plain room, I feel as if I am on fire. My heart is beating at an inhuman rate, and I feel as if I couldn’t see five feet in front of me. It’s not like rehearsing to myself on the car ride over did any help, I think to myself. Now I’ve learned about the natural “fight or flight” response to these types of situations, but neither option was particularly
appealing to me in this moment. I felt mentally and physically paralyzed, as a hand extends from the figure in front of me, now hanging in the void that I am conventionally supposed to fill.

It was a sunny summer afternoon and I was out playing basketball with my brothers. It was then when I received a text from my friend. The breeze stopped and my basketball became suspended in the air as I read his text. He informed me that there was a job opening for a tech position at a local library.

At this point in my life, I never had experience in a job. My immediate thoughts were of hesitation, but not of outright rejection. Getting a job to me was a nerve-racking idea. How would I apply? I don't even have a resume yet. What experience should I have in order to be compatible for the position? I knew that I had to “put myself out there” and “apply myself” sometime relatively soon, but I just didn’t know if now was the right time for me. I was procrastinating on the inevitable.

After I came inside and told my parents about it, I received encouragement to apply. Afterall, I had just taken a class about computer basics and got a certification. I would finally have something to do over the summer, and I would get paid for doing it! This was a rare opportunity for something that I would only ever see once, so I decided to take up my friend's offer.

That night, I began filling out the required paperwork necessary for myself, the employer, and my school. This was an arduous task for someone like myself, who had never filled out paperwork. I then began to create my resume. I looked at a sample template online in order to do so. Everything went smoothly until I got to the “experience” section. It was then that I realized I had no real-world experience with this kind of thing, other than a small event I did last summer.

The feelings of hesitation resurfaced like a pot of water beginning to boil. After all of this work, I now just realized that I don’t have any real world experience? Was I simply doing all of this work for nothing? Despite all of these thoughts running through my head, I found myself ignoring them. I reassured myself that this job was an experience that I had to have, regardless of the outcome. I powered through the rest of that resume knowing it was integral to my journey. The following morning I called the employer and scheduled the interview.

About three weeks later, I received an email from the employer informing me that while I had decent experience and was able
to grasp the concepts I needed to know for the job, I had lost out to another, more experienced applicant. I still remember the
split-second drop my stomach did, but I didn’t really feel it. This natural gut reaction was not equivalent to what I was really feeling: gratitude. Although I did not get the job, I was thankful for my friend's suggestion, the opportunity that the employer gave me, and for my parents who not only let me, but encouraged me to go through this experience. With this experience in my past, I am now able to move forward in life more confidently, as I know what is to come in my future. Applying oneself, I realized, isn’t about the prospect of success, but about the experience and journey that one will always go through regardless.