Diary From a Classroom, Part 2

December 30, 2010

NOTE: Click HERE for Diary of a Classroom, Part 1

old school, by alamosbasement on Flickr

Well, a few weeks ago I promised more notes from a classroom and, you guys, I almost didn’t survive to tell this tale. The first half of my required classes in order to apply for my real estate license went pretty well. There was an adjustment to being in a classroom again, but the instructor was great, the company of the other students greater, and I enjoyed it.

The second half, however? Cripes. We were no longer prepping for an exam, but simply attending for the state-required certificate, so that changed the atmosphere a bit. Then the material was awful. And then the teacher couldn’t hold down a classroom to save her life, nor hear or understand what we were saying, nor find her sense of humor, nor be any, well, weirder.

Sigh.

It was one of those situations – rare, thankfully – where I stared at the clock on my cell phone willing it, pleading it, to move faster.

And it only moved slower.

I thought about nothing else except the giant list of items I could be working on if I weren’t sitting in that chair. About every place I wished I was instead. About what would happen – I mean really! – if I just up and walked out. No one would care! No one was requiring me to be there, and every cell in my body wanted to get as far away as possible from the embarassment that was that room.

As all of this was flowing through my head, somewhere around hour nine I finally resigned to the fact that I was going to stay. I wasn’t really ever considering to leave. I mean, come on, Annie. You knew you were going to push through from the beginning.

As much as I tried to convince myself it was, giving up wasn’t really an option. I mean, it was. But it wasn’t. There was a long-term goal at stake there. And that long-term stuff beats the short-term every, single time.

Sometimes you have to do things now to get yourself what you want later. And it might be painful. Paaaainfulllll. But you do it anyway. What’s that quote again?

“Do the things today that others won’t,
so that you can do tomorrow what others can’t.”

Yeah, that one. It’s those that push through the painful, tedious crap now that will reap the benefits later.

I want those commissions from our future investment properties. Give me that three-percent, please and thank you! I want an additional, more advanced way to learn about real estate, both commerical and residential. I want the inside connections that will come with getting to know local brokers, other investors, landlords, and developers. I want the additional time freedoms that come from multiple, residual streams of income. Therefore, what I’m doing now is worth it. WAY worth it. In fact, reviewing that list, those three extra days in that (terrible, awful, swear-inducing, torturous, need I continue?) classroom almost seems an inconsequential price to pay to have a lifetime’s worth of those advantages. Yeah?

So here’s the question: is what you’re pushing through right now worth it? What you’re not-so-happily suffering through? Will it pay off later? If the payoff isn’t immediately clear, hmm. Maybe change is something to consider.

What say you? Throw your thoughts below. As for me, all of these classroom memories are giving me the heebie jeebies, so if you’ll excuse me, I have a real estate empire to plan…

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