When I was entering my senior year of college, I settled on my dream career field of a pathologists’ assistant. It was niche, and extremely competitive to get into a program. I had a plan as of 2021 to get into a program and begin my graduate schooling. I had to delay this plan by a year when I had to take prerequisites I was not able to take before I completed undergrad. Once I had accepted this, I had my applications all ready to go in 2022 to begin the 2023 semester. This was now 2 years after my initial plan, but I was hopeful. I ended up getting rejected from every school I applied to or interviewed at. I felt behind in my career compared to my peers, and working towards a goal for 2 years made my family just suggest I settle and go into a different field. However, I did not want to give up. I realized being a re-applicant worked in my favor as I could show how much I’ve improved. I asked the programs I applied to how I could improve, and took their advice. While I was less hopeful this second round as I had been rejected just a year before, I continued on with my pursuits. The program I had re-applied to was so impressed with my improvement over the year they accepted me into the incoming class of 2024 that same day as my interview. Although it took me about 3 years to achieve this goal, I finally achieved it. I applied this lesson to other aspects in my life. While I may be delayed in getting something I want while it seems that others around me achieve their goals, I realized everything would happen when the time is right. It doesn’t matter how slowly it might happen. Everyone grows and develops at their own pace, and while I had often heard that as a consolation when I didn’t reach expectations by the time I had planned to, it really resonated when I had finally achieved what I had been focusing on for so long. Just because something that you want hasn’t happened yet, doesn’t mean that your time won’t come. Be patient, work at your goals, and when the time is right everything really will fall into place. I am proof of this platitude.