My Toughest Obstacle

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorCollege, Undergraduate August 2001

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The toughest obstacle I've ever had to overcome was getting rid of my two best friends at the end of my sophomore year. They were a bad influence on my entire lifestyle and me. As a result of hanging around with them, I did horrible at school and began to be extremely disrespectful, rude, and self-centered. Hanging out with them led to many problems in my life and was beginning to lead me down the wrong path in life. There was no other way of getting my life back on track, but to dump my friends along with the bad habits, which was quite difficult to do after a year of friendship.

        My sophomore year, I began hanging around with two very crazy girls, Amy and Jennifer, that like to go out and party every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, of every single week. They did whatever they wanted to do and didn't listen to nor obey anybody but themselves.

On top of that, they didn't care about school, including homework, tests, and their grades. Just after a few weeks of spending time with them, all of their bad habits and personality traits began to rub off on me. The next thing you know, I had become exactly like them, and even worse.

        Every aspect of my life had changed for the worse, and I was beginning to throw away my life, along with my goals, values, and morals. All of my grades dropped dramatically, and I had absolutely no respect nor obedience towards anybody, especially my parents. I had become lazy toward getting things done, and only thought about myself and going out. My family was no longer a priority in my life. I had an extremely horrible attitude. I would talk back constantly to my teachers, parents, relatives, and everybody else that tried to tell me what to do. I just didn't care about anybody's feelings but my own. The thought of going to college was no longer a concern to me.

        I didn't realize what I had become until one night, when I eavesdropped on my parents. It was late one night, and I had heard someone crying, so I went to see what was going on. To my surprise, my mom was crying and talking with my dad about how bad I had changed, and how worried, scared, and deeply concerned she was for me. It was until that very night that I had realized the kind of person I had become, and had to put a stop to all of it.

        Unfortunately, the only way out was to stop hanging out with Amy and Jennifer, which were my close friends for a whole year. Since it was summer, I didn't have to see them at school, so I just kept avoiding them and canceling out on them, which I knew they couldn't stand. It wasn't long before they easily got tired and irritated with me and told me off. It wasn't easy to do this but I got over it over time. The next thing I had to do was apologize to everyone I had hurt, like my parents. So I had a big, long talk with my parents, telling them what I had realized and what I was planning to do to change. I made u p all of the classes I failed in summer school and in night school. My parents had gotten me a tutor during my junior year to make sure I stayed on the right path because I had grew lazy toward school, but I overcame all of that, and I was finally getting my life straight.

        This experience and obstacle has made me stronger in character and as a person. I know how easy it is to get off track and easily start ruining my life if I didn't keep my priorities straight. Along with keeping my family and school as a priority, I set goals for my life, which included graduating from college. After overcoming that obstacle, I feel like I can do anything I put my mind to, and there's no obstacle that I cannot overcome.