Tired … just tired. Like bow ties of film streaming before my eyes, events and memories cross and become one. Late nights and early mornings blur together, leaving no means of separation in the events of this dreary-eyed and weakened soul.

Articles and classwork, columns and finances, meetings and roommates consume all that is. Leaving one still unfed at the end of a fruitful day, as completion turns to starting anew.

The morning joy of a night’s complete work ravaged by thoughts of the coming hours.

Failing to defeat the burden, one gives in. A class skipped. An assignment not turned in. A story left incomplete.

Failure always on the hunt, waiting to strike at its prey.

We all know who they are, those who have fallen and become the fodder of the ever-hungry beast at our back. We refuse to point them out to another, but we know who they are, and they force us to clamor ahead in fear.

This is not the way for one to travel through life.

For fear is the true enemy, not failure. As long as one continues to breathe, he has not failed simply because someone else says so but merely continued along a path left untended by society. Even as we are trained to fear failure, it is that very fear that holds us back.

Running from our problems merely begs them to consume us. One must admit to himself where he belongs and must face the day ready to strike, to attack the burden of fear and failure. To take them into his hands and cast them off.

There is no greater sign of weakness than one who cowers from himself. As long as you do what you have chosen to do, and refuse to fear those who oppose you, no one can call you weak.

These are things told to me long before, but I am only beginning to realize as I reach the hub of my senior year of college. Failure does not come from outside, but from within. Only when we have let ourselves down have we failed.

This is not something that I always have understood.

While the grisly, difficult task of concluding a seventh semester at this university looms, I have clearly seen the way it must be. I will continue on through the remainder of college to emerge victorious. However, it is the path that I have chosen for myself, rather than one society has chosen for me. Some choose paths other than college, and are looked down upon by society.

But society is wrong.

Any person who has chosen to go to college not because they wanted to, but because they didn’t know what to do with themselves should reconsider exactly what direction in life they want to go. There are too many possibilities, opportunities and decisions to be made to default to the status quo.

So, finally, it took me this long to come to any kind of conclusion on many levels, but college and a degree in journalism is the direction I have chosen for myself, and the newspaper business is where I feel I belong.

Those tired evenings and crossed memories do have a purpose. All of the troubles and difficulties are the result of a conscious decision. The sense of fear is gone. There is no reason to fear, once you have committed and made a choice that your gut tells you is the right one. Everybody makes their own choices, just be sure of yours and all will be well.