I am a true believer in karma and the saying that “everything happens for a reason.” Throughout life any situation, devastating or joyful, happens for a reason. I try to live everyday with no regrets, but of course I know I will miss up. However with the mindset that everything happens for a reason, I can get past my mistakes and grow quickly from them. It is very easy for people to get down on themselves and think they are not good enough and it has been common for me growing up as a soccer player. Soccer is a huge part of my life; I have been playing for longer than I can remember. It started out as just a game I played out on the field during recess, but as I grow up and moved on from club and high school soccer, to now college soccer, and hopefully beyond, it continues to make me who I am today.
The road to getting to where I am today is not the usual path you would expect from a soccer player at one of the top soccer programs in the country to have taken. I have always been considered a good player, but not “UCLA good.” To go to UCLA you needed to be a part of the Olympic Development Program, specifically the national team or at least the regional team, was what they told me. I finally got invited to tryout for the state team (the stepping stone to the regional and then national team, which go on much longer than the state team) during the state programs last year; I had been given a one and only chance of making the program. To my dismay during the three-weekend tryouts I never played so unlike myself in my life. I could not have played any worse; I did not make the team or even the reserves. It was devastating at first, but I knew it was for a reason; the program was not for me. I knew I was good enough to make the team, but I knew at the end of the day karma would be in my favor if I continued to work hard and let go the fact that I would never be a part of that program. I turned out to be right, going to the school of my dreams, earning a starting spot on the team my freshman year, all from not living my life with a regret that I played horrible that weekend. That is why I believe that everything happens for a reason and in karma, which is why I do what I do.
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