Do you believe the grey area is temporary or permanent?

• “It’s in your mindest. I say that simply because, you can have the mindset of being complacent and you don’t know you are. You see the grey area and think you can push yourself forward but you don’t. So, ultimately you are in the grey area. But, then I feel like if you have the mindset, “I gotta do better, I gotta do more, take it one step further” , then the grey area will be a small portion of your life.”

Can you talk to me about your emotions/struggles in the grey area?

• “I find myself having to control my emotions a lot. I’m really big on myself, I’m really hard on myself. The saying you are your worst critic, that’s me. There are times where I’m literally doing school work saying ‘Will ,yea you got this, you are in a temporary space right now and you will get past it.’ Internally I’m crying tears, I feel as though physically I can’t shed them. Up and down, depending on the mood, depending on how I wake up . I have so much potential and I see it. I know where I want to be but I’m not there yet on the time I thought I would be.”

Why did you decide to go to college?

• “In high school I never thought about it, ‘yea it’s not for me’. I love to read, write. But, I just wasn’t into the whole thing for education. Never big on that, I sat down and spoke to my mentor, he said a lot of things you like and wanna do you wouldn’t be able to because in society you need a degree. At the time I wanted to be a public speaker but my mentor told me I need a degree for that. I was like okay sure. In high school, we didn’t have SAT prep nor ACT prep…it was just a really horrible high school. Ironically one of the rooms we met in was called the commissary room. But in the end, I asked myself, what do wanna do?, I wanna teach. College.”

How do you view college now?

• “Yes. I view it as something that is a tool for someone who wants to propel in the real world.”

During your post-graduation phase of life, are there any lessons you learned and would like to share?

• “You really can’t always account for life. There are lot of things we have planned for ourselves. We see things going completely brilliant then life just throws a crazy curveball at you and you have to deal with that curveball, not just in that present moment but your life. It can be 5 mins, 10 years…you just can’t always account for life, everyone is going to have events . Your plans can come into fruition… 80% of people plans do come to fruition, but there are also things that I call the ‘unknown unknowns’ , that just pop up out of the blues of life and you can’t predict them.”