In the last 30 years I’m proud of/grateful for: my drive and perseverance towards achieving a goal.
I’d have to say this is one of my most treasured traits. I set high but generally reasonable goals for myself. Yes, I often fail, but as cliche as it sounds, I’m a better person for having tried. Some goals I’ve achieved that I’m proud of:
-I was salutatorian of my high school class. Yes, that’s 2nd place. I was “1st place” until the last part of my senior year. It was disappointing but I worked hard and was proud of myself.
-I walked on the cross-country team in college having prepared myself to get cut from the team very quickly. What business did I have running at a D1 school? I worked really hard and had the time of my life and was generally an upper-middle-of-the-pack runner. I was quite pleased with myself.
-I graduated magna cum laude (that’s 2nd place again for those who are wondering) with 2 bachelors degrees. I was less than a tenth of a grade point away from graduating suma cume laude (highest honors) and I literally lost it on the last exam of my last semester (quantum mechanics). I’m still proud though. That course was a beast.
-I have a Ph.D. And had a 4.0 in grad school. My classes were conceptually very difficult and I can’t believe I skated through with a perfect GPA. I also passed my 5 cumulative exams on the first 5 tries (you get 15 tries over 2 years). And I won a very prestigious and nationally renowned fellowship. Another girl and I were the first two to graduate from our starting class, making it through in only 4 normal academic years (starting fall year 1, ending spring year 4). I think the key to making it through grad school was to only focus on the next hurdle in front of me and never look too far ahead.
All of these things would make me proud if I didn’t have CF, but because I do and I know how much extra discipline and time management this all required makes me even more proud of myself.
I don’t intend for this to make me look like I’m bragging about my accomplishments, but rather to celebrate the effort I give to achieve a goal that I set my mind to and to achieve it well. It’s one of the things that makes me me.
How I celebrated it: yesterday I biked for 5 minutes on the stationary bike at the rec center before my water aerobics class.
This is one of the small and slow steps in my plan to overcome my achy old lady back and get myself back on my bicycle regularly. I want to get my fitness level back to where it was 2 years ago so I’ll know I’m doing everything I can to keep my lungs as strong as I can.
My back has been feeling really great the last two weeks, which is why I added the stationary bike. I’m trying to keep it short and light and give my body plenty of rest before I try it again. I’ve made some landmark goals in 2 week increments over the next 3 months. Hopefully the slow build up will work out to be progress forward and I’ll have the patience to stick to my plan.
