Writing Task Mentor Quote – Afrah Mohsin

“No one in this room is stupid, we are just lazy. It’s not that we can’t do it, it is that we don’t want to do it.”

My father said these words to me and my brothers, and I think that he wasn’t just saying it to us instead he was saying it about people in general. It was the beginning of a new school year, and I was in 7th grade. In 2017 in the United States at our home, we were in the living room, and I was sitting on the table doing my homework. my older brother was leaning against the wall and my two younger brothers were sitting on the couch watching TV. My mother was in the kitchen and my father was standing in the middle of the living room wishing us a blessed new school year. And then he started talking about the importance of education, when he said, “No one in this room is stupid, we are just lazy. It’s not that we can’t do it, it’s that we don’t want to do it.” He said it in Arabic. I don’t know why I liked this sentence, maybe because it’s true.

One week before I started college. I was so stressed and nervous about how college would be for me. I was reading about the courses and exams that I have to take to get into the nursing program. I told my dad that college would be hard, and I might fail my classes, I also said that I was not smart or capable enough to pass all these hard courses. He said how do I know if it’s hard before even entering college, and then he said the same quote I am writing about right now. this quote inspires me because it makes me believe that as long, as I am not lazy, nothing is impossible. If you truly want something, you should put effort into accomplishing it instead of giving up. And it makes me think of how everyone has a story, some people give up on the first try and some people keep going and achieve their goals. The lessons from my father continue to impact me in college because they motivate me to work harder and make my parents proud.