Was it Worth it?

Who knows why I do what I do? I certainly don't. Normally I think it's because it's one of three things, fun, simple, or convenient. I certainly must be in the mood as well. Stories from my life, I'll try not to get into any relationship things today okay? for we all know how I am with those, that someone or I have asked me:

Was it Worth it


Picture this! Me as a sixth grader (if you can't picture that, hopefully I'll get a picture uploaded, but just think of me now, with short straight hair). I was awesome! I ruled William Penn Elementary with my friends Matt, Adam, Adam, and Luke... Well okay not really, but we did have some awesome times. Anyways, my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Davis, had a contest every term. The contest was to see who would read the highest number of pages per term. Whoever did would win... A CANDY BAR!! Not only any candy bar, but a king size candy bar of their favorite kind of candy bar.
When I first heard this I was so so so ecstatic. I was going to win that prize. The rules were simple. Read a book. Bring it to her during a time where we were working on projects in class, and she'd quiz you on it. She'd then mark down how many pages it was. She also said any Newbery Award Winners as well as classics were double the number of points. Whoever had the most "pages" read by the end of the term, won. EASY!
The first term I started to read. I read every day after school. I read long into the night. I read all of the Harry Potters, I read all the Newbery Award Winners I could find. Holes. The Giver. The Narnia books. So on and so on and so so so on. I won that King Size Butterfinger (my favorite candy bar at the time, mostly because it was one of my older brother's favorite, and I wanted to be just like him) every time. All four terms. It was quite simple every term. I was hundreds of pages in front every term, except the last one, I had to fight to win that semester. And I never got my candy bar.
This is one of my feel good stories. One of those stories I use in applying for scholarships and college and stuff. I love telling about it. Mostly because of how long it took for me to realize something... If I worked for my mom however much I read, she would have given me money. She would have given me lots of money. I could have probably paid for a king size candy bar in an hour of yard work. EASY! Wow what an idiot I was in sixth grade. I was always bragging that I was winning to my friends... Man what a fool I was.
Or was I? That year I learned something. I learned to love reading. I don't read now for a candy bar, I read for the adventures my mind gets to go on. I read because fantasy sometimes is so much easier than reality, and I kind of want to be there instead. Love comes easy in... wait I said I wasn't going to talk about that... Never mind.
Now you may ask me (but please don't), "Was it worth it?" You decide.

That same year or maybe it was the year before, I was in a dance company (pause for any snickering or really loud laughter, yes a dance company (another pause)). My team was to perform in Southern California. They were going to go to Knotts Berry Farm, Universal Studios, and Disneyland and perform! While there they'd go to the beach too, but not to perform. Three years earlier I had been to Disneyland with my family (actually that's a super funny story I'll try to tell later), so I knew that I'd be missing out if I didn't go. I asked my mom, and she told me I'd have to work for my own money to go. I needed something like $500. For a twelve year old that is a lot of money, especially one whose allowance was like five bucks a week.
I had four months to get the money. I became a paperboy. I got a route, and I had to wake up every day at six to go and deliver papers. Sometimes (and by sometimes I pretty much mean everyday) my mom helped me deliver them by driving me around with the papers (and now that I look back on that, she probably spent more on gas than I got for delivering the papers). I was earning money but not fast enough. I had to add another route, and I had to work for my dance teacher (earning $10 an hour doing lawn work because she loved me and wanted me to come with them to Disneyland), but I finally made enough money and went.
That lesson I learned was of hard work. Also that if you want something badly enough, go for it. Do it with faith and all things are possible. That was definitely worth it! I loved it, wouldn't do it again, but I loved it.

If something isn't worth it for me I won't do it. I will look at it and think will it be fun, will it inconvenience me in any way, and what will I get out of it? If the answers are wrong for those questions, it's more than likely I won't do it, but everything I do is worth it. Mostly because I learn from it, and I grow from it. Now I'm just trying to make my life as a whole, "worth it"!