Just like the big rock in the picture, my first few months at Baruch have not been smooth. Otherwise, the rock would be a perfect sphere and would roll with little effort. In the Greek myths that we heard about back in the day, heroes like Hercules did not actually train by pushing a perfectly circular boulder down a straight path. He actually struggled with disoriented and irregular shaped boulders up hills and edges in order to gain more strength and endurance. That is very similar to my experience at Baruch thus far, it has obviously not been easy, yet I am not mad that it is not. We all have actually been pushing rocks all our lives, this rock just happens to represent our trials with college while we still have to push bigger rocks in the future. Just like this big rock, nothing has been easy at Baruch. It is a responsibility that everyone has to learn to carry just like how every individual would get their own big rock.

Often I would have to find myself staying home every weekend to do a paper or study for a test, simply because this big rock is too heavy. Sometimes, I would also have to wake up earlier to get to school or even leave school when it is pitch dark at night, just because this big rock is not round enough. What is most scary is that we all know that this big rock will never be a perfect circle, and it will always be heavy and always can be heavier. This big rock can also actually kill us; there is a chance that it may fall on us. Then, there is also a chance that this big rock can roll us over and squash us to death. This big rock is threatening, and it’s scary. Yet we still have to push it around and keep it by our sides. Why? That is because everyone has a big rock that belongs to them only.

Unless we smooth our the big rock ourselves or even crack it open, this rock will stay the same size and shape forever as long as we have to deal with the same one. How we manage our big rocks is solely on us, whereas everyone else is too busy worrying about their own big rocks. We should never compare the sizes or shapes of our own big rocks to the ones of others, for two rocks will never be the same and they will always look different. The type of rock that we are given is almost never our own cause; rather how this rock turns out will come from only ourselves. We can possibly have a friend or two come and chip at it, but we are the ones who push it everyday. Baruch and this big rock are similar because we already knew before hand that it would be hard to go through it, neither would roll smoothly. Yet we all know that if we push this rock enough, we would be successful in some way some day.

Wilson Hinh

I typed in big rock into google, it’s the fourth picture.