Math, is it worth it?

I was six years old when this happened. I was six years old when I had my first math lesson. Before that, I knew how to count and how to write the numbers, and it was very hard for me. I didn’t understand why my parents and teachers told me that numbers were important. Why did people have to say three hundred seventy-nine cars when they could just say “many cars”? Numbers were useless. In my first class of math I learned how to add.

Numbers weren’t useful anymore. They were fun. I would go to my mum, and tell her: “We have one fish, and grandpa has two fishes. Guess what? We all have three fishes!”. She would laugh softly, while I smiled from ear to ear very proud of myself.

By the end of the year I knew how to add and subtract. And I was pretty good at it. I decided math would always be my favorite subject. But that didn’t last long, of course. As I grew up math were getting harder and harder. Therefore, I was getting worse and worse at this subject.

So my parents decided to sign me in a math academy called “Kumon”. At the beginning it was fine. But after a while, as math classes, and as any subject, it got harder. I remember myself sitting down in my desk at twelve in the night with watery eyes trying to solve equations. I wanted to drop Kumon so bad.

But I did not. Not because I didn’t want to, because my parents didn’t want me to drop it. My parents always pushed me to try my best. “I know you don’t like it. You think this doesn’t make any sense.

But, you have to trust us and believe that one day, all your efforts will have a reward” they said to me. I decided to trust them. And I took the right decision. After some months, as my parents said, my reward came. Math was getting hard for everyone in my class, but this time not for me. While everyone struggled with the new things that we were learning, I didn’t.

I was confident and one of the best students in math class. I had that feeling again. The feeling that I had when I learned to add for the very first time. The feeling of pride. I began to like math again. But this time I realized that what I actually liked it wasn’t the the calculations.

It was the feeling that I got when after the effort that I put on it I do it right. After all the stress, all the tears, all the nights studying math, I finally got it. Today, I am not one of the best students in math, neither one of the worst. I am a girl that tries her best in the subject she loves. A subject that gives her stressful moments, but also feeling of being proud of herself.

The subject that brings back the smile from ear to ear she used to have when she was little. Sometimes, when you want to have or reach something, you have suffer in someway. In that moment you have to ask yourself, is it worth it to go through this to gain the reward? In my case, it was.