If There Is Nothing but What We Make in This World Let Us Make It Good. Beta Ray Bill

“If there is nothing but what we make in this world…let us make it good.” Beta Ray Bill

There are many things in my life that I am proud of; The evening of September 11th, 2001, I organized my boy scout troop to post flags in the area to collect donations. In 2006, I joined the United States Marine Corps, in which I was deployed twice. Got married in 2009. In 2012, I graduated from Utah State University with a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology, and in 2015, my daughter was born. I had no idea that I was capable of any these things before they happened. Watching actions movies as a teenager, I never thought that I would be brave enough to do the things they did. Coming from society’s version of a broken family, I never thought without a dad to look up that I could be a good husband or father. Seeing others with much better grades than mine in high school, I never saw myself even going to college. And here I am again, finishing one more impossible task- a Master’s degree in Social Work.

Nelson Mandela once said “It’s always seems impossible until it’s done.” Looking back, I cannot see myself as anywhere near as incapable of those accomplishment as I thought that I was. In reflection, I have learned that we are a product of circumstances and our motivation. This is what has driven me to social work. There’s not a lot that I can do to change circumstances, but just maybe there is something that I can do to help someone find motivation to change the things that they want. I want to help others achieve their own impossibilities.

“Life doesn’t give us purpose, we give life purpose.” The Flash

However, I had no idea that social work was for me until I couldn’t find a job in sociology after graduation. Feeling defeated, I expanded my search to related fields and found a position as a case worker in a community mental health provider. The work was different than my background in education, but it ended being exactly how I needed to help people. Statistics and numbers of sociology became the faces and lives of social work. It clicked when I got my first Veteran client. As most Veterans go to the VA for help, we didn’t get many, so it wasn’t for months until I had a Veteran on my caseload. After working with him and connecting on a much different level than others, I knew what was going to happen next.

“The door is more open than it appears. It separates who you are from who you can be. You don’t have to walk through it…You can run!” Franklin Richards

My door was open when I researched social work programs and how they helped Veterans. Google led me to the University of Missouri and its Military Social Work certificate. In 2014, I started the program. II was stressed the first semester, I knew that a baby was coming whose due date was the first day of the second school semester. Looking ahead, I thought that school was going to be impossible with a newborn. The anxiety made a noticeable difference on my performance. My first semester of Graduate School had the worst grades of my whole program. As it would turn out, the anxiety was unfounded. When Eleanor was born, life and school became clearer, not harder. She was a new motivation for me to get through the next seemingly impossible circumstance.

As I discussed before, we are a product of our circumstance and our motivation. I have learned how to use motivation to get through the unimaginable. And I want to teach others to do the same.

“You only have your thoughts and dreams ahead of you. You are someone. You mean something.” Batman