I mean… for pretty much my entire life, I’ve lived by the motto, “This sucks, but I’ve gotta do it anyway.”, never once thinking about forming any long-term dreams or goals. After all, I was gonna die young and sick anyway, so what was the point of deluding myself into some sort of unachievable dream or goal, if I already knew that I had no chance of achieving it at all?

Growing up, my parents would say something along the lines of “Suck it up, Buttercup!” whenever I freaked out over going to the doctors’ every other month, or whenever I got upset about having to take my pills and do my CF treatments every damn day. I got very used to hearing, “Welp, too bad! You’re doing it anyway.” over and over and over and over again from both of my parents, every single time I bitched about it. 

Well, they weren’t actually that harsh about it (most of the time, anyway), but the message was made clear regardless: I could whine and cry all that I wanted, but I was still gonna take my pills, get my shots, and do my treatments every single day no matter what the hell was going on, as my life literally depended upon it. 

As a little girl, I didn’t really understand why I had to work so much harder to my peers to simply stay alive. As an adult, I still don’t understand why I was born the way that I was, but I do understand why my parents made me eat right, exercise every day, do my treatments, take my pills, and see my doctors’ on an extremely rigid schedule. And, there’s certainly a silver lining that I cannot ignore: Because I had to work so hard to stay alive, I developed a lot of discipline and a “pain tolerance” that most of my peers lack. 

In other words, my life revolved around literally doing everything I didn’t want to do, so I was less likely to die a horrific death. Therefore, I just got used to constantly doing things I didn’t (and still don’t) want to do. 

Nowadays, because I’m so used to just doing hard things regardless of how I feel about them for the sake of survival, I never really realized that people often accomplish goals and dreams in life that bring them joy and give them a sense of purpose. Moreover, I simply haven’t considered pursuing a career that I may actually enjoy. Instead, I’ve simply been looking at college as a series of boxes to check so, years from now, I can land a secure, well-paying job that likely won’t be replaced by AI or shipped overseas, in order to ensure my independence and survival.