Beat Editor Gretchen Hinger, a junior, shares her belief that every moment matters and has an impact on the future.
Hi, I’m Gretchen Hinger, a junior and the Beat Editor for the ODYSSEY Media Group at Clarke Central High School. This is “This I believe”. These are essays that discuss the origin, importance and rationale behind people’s personal belief systems. Students will share their personal essays discussing how these beliefs affect their everyday lives, times they may have been challenged and how they may impact the lives of those around them. This is “This I Believe”.
In life, people tend to try to control all circumstances and plan everything. Up until the pandemic, I was the same way. I would go to school every day at exactly 7:15, swim practice at 5:30, eat dinner at 8 and then go to sleep at 10. I repeated this ritual every single day, knowing exactly what was going to happen and how I would go about each task. Then the unexpected happened and I was left without that structure.
With this experience, I learned that every moment we spend in life eventually leads to something unforeseeable in the future, and everything happens for a reason. Without failure or mistakes in life, we will never grow and adapt to our surroundings, and without growth, we will be left feeling hopeless and lost in this world. With the belief that everything happens for a reason comes entelechy, the realization of potential, and the true goal of life.
By dwelling on the experiences that don’t go our way, we miss the opportunity to see the potential outcome of this misstep on our schedule in the future. This mindset puts people in a cycle of untapped potential and loss of the growth that comes with realization.
By realizing that everything happens for a reason I have been able to go about life with less worrying about what I did yesterday and more about what will come tomorrow. I look forward to the day presented to me rather than behind, where life has already happened. In the end, each thing that happens to me every day with every interaction I go through puts me in a better place in the long run, even though it might not seem that way in the moment.
In December of 2019, I took the SAT in order to attain my goal of getting to dual enroll at (the University of Georgia). For this test, I didn’t study as much as I should have and was not prepared, and in the end I didn’t end up getting a high enough score to go to UGA. In that moment, I was disappointed, but I moved on and even decided that it would be fine if I went to (the University of North Georgia) instead. Later on in February of last year, I was able to take the ACT due to serendipity. This totally random opportunity led to me getting a score much higher than the one necessary to get into UGA.
By believing in the first place that my SAT score was just one bump in the road and wouldn’t affect me overall, I was able to get rid of any negative attitude I had and eventually I had the opportunity to try again. While this may have just been a coincidence, it does show that things are in store for you even when you might not believe so. Even though one opportunity didn’t work out, it doesn’t mean another one won’t. There is always another chance around the corner even though it may not be exactly what you hoped for, or turn out the way you thought it would, but it all happened for a reason.
Rather than drowning myself in my failures or mistakes, I look toward the future where anything is possible and things will happen in the most unpredictable ways. Every moment comes with a consequence and while those could either be negative or positive, they significantly impact everything that happens in my life, and these moments have brought me to believe that everything happens for a reason.
