Personal Responsibility Is Not only a Way of Life, but It Can Also Shape the Person You Eventually

Personal Responsibility is not only a way of life, but it can also shape the person you eventually

turn out to be. Being responsible can eventually get you where you want to be in your lifetime, it does take time, and perseverance, but it can be done. Personal Responsibility is setting a schedule and keeping to it. I try and always focus on the task at hand, such as school and work. Sometimes I get really overwhelmed with working all day, then having to do school work at night. I know it's hard now, but eventually in the end it will pay off when I am able to do what I want to do with my life. One of the biggest obstacles with working a full time job and attending school is finding time to for my family. My husband is a big family man, and always insists we use Sunday's as Family Day. So we try and do something as a family on Sundays and we always sit down and have a family meal, whether it is breakfast or dinner. Even though he works long hours like I do, he is very supportive of me attending school and understands when I need to spend a few extra hours weekly on reading, writing or replying to message boards for my classes. I try and focus on school work either in the morning before work, or in the evening after dinner when everyone has settled down and is relaxing before bed. I keep an outline on my calendar of due dates, readings and appointments, which I try to update on a daily basis. Sometimes I forget and I may not do everything I wanted to accomplish, but chances are I will get to doing them the next day.

I think being responsible at an early age pays off, especially when it comes to entering college. I wasn't always the way I am. I never took being responsible seriously until I was about 24 years old. I graduated from high school with honors, and did attend college, where I lived on campus. At first, I was very responsible, I went to all my classes, did all my homework and assignment, and then I started hanging out with some kids who, weren't so responsible. They partied all the time, slept late, missed classes and just stopped doing homework and class assignments all together. Eventually, I just stopped going to class all together. Then I just decided to leave college all together and move back in with my parents, who were less than impressed that I failed an entire semester away at school. I got a summer job at a nursing home, where I was a licensed nursing assistant and worked full time, applied to another college, which was further away from my parents and was dead set on being successful. The first semester went by without a hitch, and me, making the president's list. After winter break, I got lazy, really lazy. And had a repeat of my first year at college all over again, ending the second semester with less than respectable grades. I had a history of falling in with the wrong crowds, and again I had let it happen unknowingly. My parents didn't let me come home this time, they tried the tough love with me, and I moved to the largest city in Vermont where I had a good paying job as a licensed nursing assistant. But if I could do it all over again I would have tried to be successful in college. Since then I have earned two associates degrees and am looking to achieve my goal of becoming a teacher.

Some things I do to be successful in college is to make sure I take the time to read everything I am supposed to be reading and doing all the assignments. Sometimes it is difficult to logon and post, but I make myself do it. I set a certain time everyday where I at least log on, read what I need to do for the week, and make a list of things so that I don't get stuck doing them all on the same day because I have put them off, day after day. One thing I plan to gain from being successful this time around in school, is self-pride