The Story
I'M TRYING TO FINISH WHAT I START.
I've wanted a bachelor's degree for about seven years.
I've also changed majors twice.
The problem was never that I didn't want to go to school.
The problem was that I've had a habit of starting things, getting excited about them, and eventually putting them down.
I've done that more times than I'd like to admit.
And I'm tired of it.
01
WHY NOW?
This time feels different.
I lost my job.
My son was born.
Both happened in the same month.
And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I kept coming back to the same thought:
It's time to figure out how to finish the things I start.
For years, I've told myself that I'll eventually get my degree, eventually find the right career, eventually get my life organized.
Eventually isn't a plan.
Now I have a wife and a son who depend on me.
I want to build a life where I can provide for my family and be someone my son can look up to.
I don't want him growing up watching his dad constantly start over because he couldn't see something through.
So I'm giving this everything I have.
02
I'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE.
My relationship with school has never been simple.
I was bullied a lot growing up. The people who accepted me became my friends, but a lot of the things we did together weren't exactly helping us succeed in school.
We partied.
We smoked.
We drank.
School wasn't exactly our priority.
At one point in high school, my overall GPA was 0.8.
That's how bad it got.
But looking back, there's something else I realize now:
I never really learned how to learn.
School expected me to show up, do the work, and get the right answers.
Nobody ever sat me down and explained how to actually learn something.
How to remember it.
How to study when you don't understand it.
How to recognize what you don't know.
How to keep going when you're frustrated.
I was expected to figure that out myself.
I didn't.
And eventually, I started believing that maybe I just wasn't someone who was good at school.
I'm starting to question that assumption.
03
WHY NURSING?
My original dream wasn't nursing.
I was a certified EMT and had been hired by a fire department shortly before COVID.
For a long time, I wanted to become a firefighter/paramedic.
Growing up, I've seen too many friends get seriously hurt. I've also lost friends.
Those experiences left me with something I still carry with me:
I never want to feel helpless when someone is having one of the worst days of their life.
I want to help.
I want to be someone people can rely on when things are difficult.
Someone who can ease even a small part of the pain and burden someone else is carrying.
That's what originally drew me toward emergency medicine.
And that's still a huge part of why I'm pursuing healthcare.
Nursing is the path I'm pursuing now.
The immediate goal is getting through the TEAS, getting into WGU's prelicensure BSN program, and seeing how far I can take this.
04
I'M SCARED.
Honestly?
I'm scared of almost everything about this.
I'm scared I'll do what I've always done.
I'll get excited.
I'll tell everyone what I'm going to do.
I'll start.
And then I'll stop.
I'm scared of failing.
I'm scared that I'm taking on something that's too difficult.
I'm scared that I'll waste more time.
I'm scared of putting my family through another chapter of uncertainty.
And, probably most of all, I'm scared that the people closest to me will eventually look at me and think:
He just doesn't finish anything.
Those aren't fears I can solve by pretending I'm confident.
So I'm not going to pretend.
I'm going to work anyway.
05
THAT'S WHAT HYPA IS ABOUT.
I know I'm not the only person who feels stuck.
There are a lot of people who feel like they're behind.
People who don't believe they're smart enough.
People who have started over more than once.
People who procrastinate until the pressure becomes unbearable.
People who want to change their lives but can't seem to get themselves moving.
People who are scared that they've already wasted too much time.
I want HYPA to be proof that you don't have to have everything figured out before you start.
Not proof that everything will work out.
Not proof that anyone can accomplish anything without limits.
Just proof that starting where you are is still starting.
And that you can learn.
You can change.
You can get better at things you were never taught how to do.
But eventually, you have to act.
And then you have to keep intentionally acting until the thing is finished.
06
SO I'M DOCUMENTING IT.
This website and the YouTube channel are me figuring that out in public.
I'll document:
The wins.
The failures.
The studying.
The procrastination.
The systems that actually help.
The systems that sounded good but didn't work.
The classes.
The doubts.
The progress.
And eventually, hopefully, the degree.
If I succeed, you'll get to see how I did it.
If I fail at something, you'll get to see that too.
Either way, I want the journey to be useful.
Because if nothing else, I want to come out of this having learned something about myself — and maybe help someone else learn something about themselves too.
07
WHERE I'M STARTING
Right now, the roadmap is simple:
START → TEAS → WGU → BSN → NCLEX
I'm at START.
I'm preparing for the TEAS.
I'm learning how to study.
I'm trying to build better habits.
And I'm figuring out whether I can finally become the person who finishes what he starts.
I don't know exactly where this ends.
But I know where I'm starting.