At some point in life, everyone reaches this feeling of total happiness and invincibility. My first semester of sophomore year, I lifted huge gym weights in the strength and conditioning gym and qualified for an annual robotics tournament at the Virginia Smithsonian Museum.

But on the day of January 29, 2020 (the day before Virginia), I did an MRI to check on my “upset stomach.” Unfortunately, my small intestines were severely inflamed from an unhealthy diet and couldn’t handle certain foods anymore. I was immediately placed in 24-hour hospital care, as the doctors thought I had Crohn’s disease but couldn’t prove it as I had no symptoms. I was then barred from physical activities and from eating anything for six weeks. I also couldn’t go on the robotics trip anymore and missed the rest of the season. All my hard work over the year just erased in a single day. All I could do was sit and watch “Happy Gilmore'' until I got better and was released home from the hospital.

Due to the coronavirus, I spent three months confined in my house, scrolling through YouTube. Then one day, I had an epiphany watching a video about a speech by Arnold Schwarzenegger from “The Terminator.” My favorite thing he said was, “When you have a goal, when you have a vision, everything becomes easy.” I realized that I forgot my goals to become the strongest I can be and the best robotics teammate I can be. I knew I could still become a strong nerd.

I birthed my journey for betterment in the month of June, by first getting an amazing doctor who closely monitored my digestive system. Despite finally being able to eat food again, he put me on an extremely clean diet. No dairy, sweets, gluten, or anything that would disturb my digestive system. At least he didn’t take away meat, that was the only food left I cared about. My next line of business was finally getting back to my robotics club. Due to Covid restrictions, I could only see my team once a week, but being the experienced juniors we are, we finished our robot at record pace. We built our robot in August, a month before the season started, and have had plenty of time to practice driving our robot and changing any inconsistencies. Our team was ecstatic for tournaments to start rolling in. The glory of the Mundelein Robotics Club would shine again once more.

For my strength goals, I also began working out and doing solely body weights exercises to gain some strength back. I ran ten miles a week and did at least one hundred pushups, squats, and sit-ups a day. I felt good, but I wasn’t satisfied. Instead of waiting for gyms to open up again, I decided to build my own gym right inside my garage. I used every scrap of cash I saved from birthdays to buy all the tools and resources for under $500 – an amazing price as most people spend thousands of dollars. It took over a month to build my entire gym out of 4” x 4” wood from the heavens of Home Depot, and it took every ounce of engineering I knew to make it hold 300+ lbs. It’s nice to know my robotics skills actually work in a real-life scenario. Now I work out six days a week until I get strong enough to reach my goal of lifting the heaviest weights I can.

Overall, I'm glad I ended up in the hospital. Without it, I would still be the weak boy struggling to face the hardships of life. In the words of the famous Arnold Schwarzenegger, “You can have results or excuses. Not both.”I now plan to continue my journey for success and learn how to endure life’s future pain. I’m stronger, I’m smarter, and I’m going to change my life.