When I imagined my life at UB as a high school senior, I imagined I would grow the most on some sort of athletics field or in a science lab.
As a computer engineering major who played three sports in high school, those seemed like the logical choices.
But my rugby career ended after a semester and I had more free time than I knew what to do with; I needed something to take up that time and give my mind a break from the endless equations I encountered during the day.
So instead of the pool at Alumni Arena, I found myself in the bowels of the Student Union in the cave-like office of The Spectrum.
I started as a sophomore in the fall of 2011 and spent two semesters as a staff writer before being promoted to assistant sports editor, news editor, sports editor and finally senior sports editor.
Those four semesters, I have been exposed to more of Buffalo than I ever bargained for.
Despite Brooklyn being my home, I have grown more than I thought imaginable in Buffalo.
My time away from most of the things that defined my first 18 years of life (i.e. NYC pizza, the ocean and my friends) has taught me to rely more heavily on the things inside me, the things about myself that make me who I am without outside influence.
Initially, that meant a lot of muttering under my breath of sayings that kept me sane, but as I've grown more confident and more comfortable, those oft-repeated quotes are now drawn on only in times when my will is tested.
The most appropriate of which cannot only be applied to myself, but The Spectrum as a whole.
The quote is the culmination of a story about Bruce Lee, in which a friend of Lee's recounts a time he ran with the martial arts expert. The quote speaks to pushing yourself:
"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life," Lee said. "There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there. You must go beyond them."
It's a little overstated, but it remains true. The difference between the successful and the unsuccessful lies in the differences between their will to succeed.
As I stare down the end of my academic career, I anticipate doing a lot of recollecting. But regardless of any epiphanies I come to in the next 10 months, if I could be remembered for my ability to push beyond my plateaus and continue to improve myself, I would be happy with that.
