Everything happens for a reason.

This is my life motto. Everyday I live by this. Some might critique it and say it’s cliche, but I’m here to tell you that if your mindset revolves around this, you will live life differently.

Obviously for “everything” to happen, you still need to put in the work. This quote isn’t some excuse for something that doesn’t go your way or for failures. This quote is for people like me, those who are hard on themselves, those who are sometimes hopeless when they tried everything, those who need to be reminded that everything is going to be okay.

I have always been a woman of faith. As a Catholic, I know that God is always looking down on me, on my side always, and that he has a path for me. However, I didn’t always think this way. A couple of miracles here and there happened, and now I know and trust in the man above to put me on the path I’m supposed to be on.

One of the craziest examples where this motto shined was with 180 Degrees Consulting. It was my Freshman spring at CMU, and I was aimlessly walking around our career fair. I knew that as a Freshman it was practically useless to try and talk to recruiters about getting an internship. It was near the end of the career fair and as I was about to exit, Gartner caught my eye. I never heard of this company or what they did, but something was telling me to just check it out. There was a decent line, so my laziness kicked in saying “nah it’s not worth it.” Despite this, something in me kept urging me to go stand in line. After standing there for a solid 2 minutes, I walked over to the line and waited. Fast forward to when I’m next in line, and a woman named Ivan introduced herself to me. She was a consultant at Gartner and a CMU alum. She read my resume and instantly asked me, “have you heard of 180 Degrees Consulting?” At the time, I had no idea what this organization was, yet she was intrigued by the nonprofit consulting work I did over the last Summer in Indonesia. She asked me to talk more later about this organization, and when I did, I found out that 180 Degrees is a student-run consultancy for nonprofits and how she intially founded it at CMU, but it died down and wanted someone to revive it. As a Freshman, reviving this organization did not cross my mind. A week later I receive an email from her and from 180 Degrees Consulting national saying that I’m the next President of the CMU branch. Not really knowing how I’m just supposed to start a new club, I took the opportunity anyways and two years later I am so so glad I did.

Another crazy instance of this motto was that nonprofit internship in Indonesia. I always questioned if the internship and trek to Indonesia was worth it. Heck even my ex-boyfriend said it was worthless. Well, if I didn’t have that experience, I would just be another CMU student pitching about myself to Ivan.

I think back to this moment, and all I can say is “wow” and “thank you.” If I didn’t go to that career fair, go to the Gartner booth, and get paired with Ivan exactly, my CMU career would’ve changed drastically. No 180 Degrees would exist right now.