Rock bottom isn’t a place, it’s a decision

When I entered sophomore year in university, I experienced burnout. It felt like I had no energy to study or focus on school-related work. The lie I believed was, “I just want to see how well I can do without studying at all.” Or, in other words, what I can get away with by doing the bare minimum. I barely passed, and I probably wouldn’t have if I didn’t study so hard the year before. One story goes that my grades and subsequent rejection from business school were rock bottom for me. It felt awful. In this story, I was seeking rock bottom, as if it were a place, hoping that it would set me straight. I didn’t want to find it, but I was drawn to it because I didn’t know what else to do. More than anything, I now recognize rock bottom as a decision. Yes, the experience of seeing almost all of my friends move on to the business school that I was rejected from sucked. It felt humiliating. And the despair of living with the consequences of not resting enough, as well as feeling like I was a…