One of the biggest things I ever realized about myself is that I’m to blame for a lot of the things I do wrong – We all are, 90% of the time. I had this realization in 8th grade when my grades were at the worst they’ve ever been. I cant’ remember exactly what they were but there was more than one D or F in there. I had been getting similar grades to this throughout much of my middle school career, but I never blamed myself – I attributed these pratfalls to things like evil teachers and short deadlines, along with blaming the work for being just plain hard. But as the end of middle school approached and my grades didn’t get any better, I finally realized that I had no one to blame by myself, for my short attention span and general lack of enthusiasm for school. It was hard to accept the truth, but once I did I was able to finally get out of that rut, by getting serious about it and focusing on school. I took responsibility for my own bad grades and righted the wrongs I had committed in that area.
Now, whenever I’ve gotten into a patch of bad grades in high school, I’ve been able to get out of it by quarter’s end – Most notably when I turned three Cs into Bs with barely any time left. And since then, I’ve been able to take responsibility for other things I do wrong in my life as well – Like not going to bed on time, a problem that plagued me throughout my high school years (though, as I said, I was able to pull through), and one that I aim to fix in college (success incoming).
The most similar situation to this that I can think of takes place not in a film, but in the manga One Piece by Eiichiro Oda. Awhile into the still-unfinished opus, one of the main band of pirates, Usopp, quits the crew once he learns that they want to replace their old and weathered ship (given to them by a treasured friend of his) with a new one. This incident almost breaks up the entire crew, but, after Usopp uses his sharpshooting skills to save one of them in a critical spot, the captain is ready to take him back. However, the crew’s stern first mate convinces him that Usopp must not be let back into the crew unless he realizes that their split happened due to his poor judgment – If that doesn’t happen, it’s possible that he could leave the crew again at a time where they need to be together. As the crew begins to set sail in their new ship, Usopp arrives and says he’ll gladly rejoin the crew, but his friends do not respond. At almost the last possible moment, Usopp breaks down crying and admits that he was a fool. He apologizes, and the crew accepts his apology and lets him on the ship with open arms.
Like how Usopp couldn’t have noticed and fixed his tendency to get angry and jump to conclusions If he hadn’t left the crew in the first place, I couldn’t have fixed the my own problems if they hadn’t caused something to important to me as bad grades. If it was not for that insight, I may not even be in college right now, so I am proud of myself for facing the truth.
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