My first lesson in Gratitude

For this post, we're going to have to get in the time machine back to 2012, which was my last year of high school. Tensions were very high because I had my exams this year obviously. My education I took quite seriously as it's drummed into you throughout your school life that EVERYTHING depends on your GCSE results! If you get an E in something you'll never get married type crap you know! Your whole life depends on these results.

Now, I wasn't the brightest or the smartest kid. I had a few areas where I excelled but overall, I thought my work was pretty average. My favourite subject was I.T which is what I went into after school. Anyway, it's exam season and the year 11's (me) didn't have to attend school as normal anymore because we were taking our exams and there's 'nothing left to teach you'. We still had to attend school every day but it was mainly spent revising chilling in an unused classroom.

I come from a poverty area so as an incentive for people to actually try and pass their exams, the school promised £50 to anyone who got a C or above in all subjects (that's a 4/5 or above to you zoomers). Now, my predicted grade in pretty much all of my lessons was a C (4-5 zoomers) but where I was from; they always used to put your predicted grade low so it looks good on the school when you pass and get higher than predicted (trick of the trade).

I was above my predicted grade in all subjects, except one.

Maths. I was just on grade in maths which was a C (4-5 Zooms). I asked my teacher if I could have extra help on the run-up to the exam (run-up it was February haha!). I started having 6th Period with my maths teacher every Wednesday and she would help me with any area I felt I needed to work on. (very thankful btw, that's not the lesson in gratitude for this blog post but I was very grateful, thank you Miss Read... yes her name was Miss Read and she taught maths)

So from Feb till May I was having an extra hour of maths a week from my teacher and come May I felt ready to take this exam!

Now maths has 3 separate exams ... well, it did when I was there. They all get marked and then you get an overall grade for all 3. You had mental maths which only lasts 30 minutes and in the exam you have a CD (showing my age here) played and you have about 30 seconds to answer each question ... hence mental maths.

Next is the calculator exam... my favourite. This is usually where you'll get thrown really obnoxious numbers and different types of questions about gardens and things like that. You'll also have your Sin Cos and Tan in there as well, I did well in this one and I loved using the calculator.

Then the dreaded non-calculator. Everything has to be done on paper, you get a mark for working out even if your answers wrong (it has to be the correct working out though, not the 'old' way as they call it - I didn't see the point in this, maths is maths as long as I get the answer but they wouldn't give you the mark if you did the old way) I remember skimming through first and looking for the classic 345 x 0 question!! haha! I felt like I did well... maybe not the fractions section but we won't talk about that, Pythagoras and angles, everything I felt like I got to the best of my ability and I can hand on heart say; I really tried.

I had my 10-hour art exam, which is a totally different story for another day.

Then the last exam I had to sit was Media Studies and then I offically left school! Woop Woop! I not longer had to attend for the rest of May or June!

Anyway, during this time off (which was well deserved I might add) me and my friends all said we would meet at school, on results day, and open our results together which I thought was nice. Me and one of my friends walked to school on results day and we received our envelopes. The other friends in our group were standing a little bit away but still around, they'd already opened theirs and were comparing as you do. So me and said friend stood a little bit away and opened ours together.

I scanned down all the different subjects and all the GCSE grades at the other end of the page. All A*'s - B's (9-6's Zoomers) except one. Maths. which was a C (5 Zoomers) and my only C at that. Atrocious! was my first thought! even though I passed with flying colours in everything else; and I had passed maths because a C is a pass. I was so disappointed in myself! How on earth could I get A*'s - B's (9-6's) in everything else but a rotten C (5) in maths! I even had a 6th period in Maths for months!

"Oh my Gosh! I got a C! how stupid!" I exclaimed.

Then I turned to my friend who had also opened her GCSE results. Her eyes filled with tears as she just stared at me ... she got a D (3 Zooms). She failed. She didn't get the £50 from the school and she now had doubts whether she was going to get into her college or not. My heart sank there and then, and I felt like slapping myself for such a heartless remark at my C (5 zooms) when she was next to me and probably would've done anything to get a C and here I was dismissing it and calling myself stupid.

That was my first lesson in gratitude in my life. Yes, I was disappointed with my overall grade in Maths but I realised I should be grateful that I actually passed and not failed like most of my year did. I don't really remember what happened after that except my other friends rushing over to compare grades and comfort said friend who got a D (3). Turns out one of my other friends got a D (3) too but she wasn't too fussed about it.

Gratitude is the first step to success, be grateful for what you have and then other things will be added to you. A grateful heart is a magnet for miracles. I truly believe the more good you focus on in your life the more you create good in your life because that's what you're focusing on. This was the first of many moments that I would remind myself of this. I don't know if you noticed but the first grade I focused on was the worst one. It just happened to be maths, but even if it was R.E I would've focused on that first (got an A* in R.E btw (9 Zooms) that's why I picked it for this example - Don't know what I'll ever do with it, I ain't about to become a blummin' vicar).

It's like we're conditioned to look at how bad we do or the bad parts of our life and zoom in on them and dismiss anything good because 'look at this bad thing I want to fix'. We need to stop, acknowledge the bad of course but focus on the good and you'll find you'll look at things from a different view if you train your brain to look at it this way.

Anyway, cut to a few weeks on; I was speaking to my Maths teacher and told her how I got a C (5) and she sat with me and went through my exam (the school had them back at this point) she pointed out the ones I got wrong but overall I did very well. The fractions section was the part where I had a few X's you know ... and one section which totally riles me up to this day ... ok, this is going right against the gratitude topic but whilst I'm on the subject, I have to say this. We had a division question right (non-calculator remember), we had to show our working out. I DID IT THE OLD WAY BECAUSE I CAN'T DO THE NEW WAY! Still, till this day, I do long division the old way, and I got the answer right but I lost a mark because I did it the old way. So I got the mark for the right answer, but I lost a mark because I didn't use the new formula for division. Fine! right ... guess what my teacher tells me.

I remember this so clear. She had this piece of paper with all the numbers for the different grades on... I WAS ONE MARK OFF A B (6 zooms)! ONE MARK! ONE FREAKIN' MARK AND I WOULD'VE GOT A B!!!!! I was so irritated! If I knew how to do long division the new way or if they'd just accept the old way of doing it still! I'd have got all A*'s - B's (9-6's) in every subject but nope! I lost that one mark which cost me the B (6). Anyway, breathe... this post is about gratitude but I had to get that off my chest.

We had our leavers assembly and I got an award for leaving with the most GCSE's in my year with a total of 21 GCSE's and it's like my little blip of getting a C (5) in maths was so minuscule now. Once I got to college I asked the maths teacher there if she could bunk my grade up to a B (6) or if I could resit my exam in college to try again and get a B (6) ... she said it's impossible because at college they only get people to a C (4/5) which is what I already had. I never had a lesson in maths in college because of this; but I was grateful in the months to come when I was leaving college early whilst everyone else was heading to 2 hours of maths. I still got into college as well, studying Computer Science and (would you believe it) Mathematics, it all worked out and I got in quick, they even asked for me at the school because of my I.T grades. I even got to skip 2 year's of college because of my I.T grade, so I went straight to level 3 in college, which in turn meant I graduated from University 2 years before I should've, which in turn saved me 2 years of debt YEY!. I was very grateful for all of this and since then I've learnt 2 very valuable lessons.

Lesson 1: Always be grateful for what you have because it could be gone tomorrow. We don't know what tomorrow brings and it could all be taken away. Also usually someone out there is jealous of what you have and what you dismiss as being normal or not even a thing. Someone out there doesn't have it and wishes they do.

Lesson 2: GCSE's mean jack crap! Now still work hard kids, it's always best to get your grades high because it makes things easier in college life and gets you access to more colleges, because some won't accept you if your GCSE's are low; but once you get to college and university they're never spoken of again. Your life now depends on diplomas and degrees ... trust me.

also, if you don't get a degree, you'll never get married. Joking; obviously. but that's how it feels when you're there in that moment.

and that's it! I know a bit of a crazy one but I was just reflecting and thinking about how gratitude makes you view your own life better and also draws more people to you because you're positive about things rather than always being a grey cloud and raining on everything. This is kind of how my blog posts will be now, whenever I have a topic and I've written enough about it I'll just post it, no schedule, no pressure just genuine thoughts and feelings poured out on the page, I think it's better that way for me :)

Thank you, for reading this post, it does mean a lot to me. Have a nice day!