A letter from January 26th, 2016

Dear Future Me, I hope that you understand the ramifications as well as the consequences of the actions and mistakes that you have committed. What you did was wrong, very wrong, and deemed unacceptable by the university as well as just about everyone that you respect. It is important to not only to recognize your wrongdoings but to also learn from them so that you do not repeat them moving forward, that is the true mark of success. Every great success story in the history of the world has recovered from some sort of mistake or failure. That is what I have for you today, I hope in the months since your mistake you have thought about them and learned. I know for certain that simply in the few weeks between committing these sins and writing this letter that I have learned a great deal and my life has been positively impacted. Due to my inability to control myself appropriately and my lack of ability to gauge my actions and their affect on others I have had to deal with many consequences, both direct and indirect. The actions that transpired on that night still linger with me and have had large effects on straining my relationship with my parents, friends, and classmates. At the time I did not realize how selfish my actions were and was simply trying to have a good enjoyable experience without trying to have an impact on those around me, as well as not trying to needlessly disrupt the night of my RA, the RA on call, and the various police officers that were needed to tend to me in my room on the night of the incident. It is crucial that moving forward I understand that every choice in life comes with pros and cons as well as the fact that, as a legal adult, the consequences for my actions are greater and I will be held more accountable and responsible for said actions and mistakes. These statements finish what I have to say about my past actions and my feelings of regret and sadness that they are attached to my name as I know that I am a different person than the boy that did these things. Moving forward I aspire to be a better man, student, friend, classmate, pledge brother, and possibly even boyfriend. The actions in the past were not concurrent with my goals and vision as a person and therefore there is no room for those kind of mistakes as I continue my journey through life and towards my dreams. I know that Southern Methodist University is the best place for myself to accomplish what I want to, and for me to put that at risk in any way is one of the dumbest and riskiest things that I have ever done. At the meeting when we went over my actions I realized exactly how wrong I was and how much of an actual problem I had caused. I fully realize moving forward that instead of walking the line between “ok” conduct and poor conduct that I need to not simply avoid poor conduct but to strive to be an exemplary student and role model for this University and to set a precedent for the students that follow me as we all move towards the same goal. In 6 months, when I get to read this message, I hope to have raised my grade point average, been initiated into Beta Theta Pi fraternity, have increased my group of friends, developed a tighter bond with those I’m already friends with, as well as improving my relationships with the girls of various sororities and other organizations on campus. Another goal of mine is to become more involved on campus, possibly being a tour guide or something of that sort for the admissions office. As someone who never stepped foot on campus before being accepted I would love to connect with kids who do have the opportunity to come and see our beautiful campus and help to sway their decision towards Southern Methodist University so that they can experience the same positive stuff that I have so far here in my educational career. I will learn from these mistakes and move on, learning and improving myself as a person as to never make them again. This was simply a mistake on my part that is just a bump in my journey on to bigger and better things, as long as you do not let this stop you from progressing then this should not be a problem and will blow over.