My Albatross

for most of my adult life, i’ve been pretty spoiled and haven’t had to try too hard to get to where i’m at today. most of it seems to have just happened because i was in the right place at the right time or i’ve just been extremely lucky and i sort of just took it all for granted whether it be not studying all that hard in college but still graduating with honors (keep in mind i wasn’t at stanford or anything) or getting my first job out of college at one of the big five without even really knowing what that meant or even my current job now. it was my first interview after public accounting and i’m pretty sure i had no idea what i was talking about but still, somehow i managed to get the job without much trouble. all of that just seemed to fall into my lap without much effort on my end and i never really thought about any of this until the past year or so when the ever elusive title of cpa seemed to be alluding me. i’ve been trying off and on to get this damn license ever since college (yes i’m reaching double digits now shoot me please) and i’ve gotten to the point where i’ve passed 3 out of the 4 and with only 1 part left, i couldn’t finish it and proceeded to lose all of my credits.

just to give a little background on my history with this test. when i initially graduated, the test was a paper exam (yes that’s how ancient i am) and it was given only twice a year and you had to drive to some remote town and sit in a big warehouse type room with long tables and wall dividers between you and the next person and raise your hand to be given permission to use the bathroom and for the entire day from early morning until early evening, you would sit and take the exam. Each exam was about 4 hours in length so you’d take one in the morning and then another in the afternoon. back then, you had to get at least a passing score on 2 of the sections in order to get any credit and if you didn’t, well then too bad you would just have to wait until the next testing window which wouldn’t be for another 6 months.

well dear readers, i did this and studied my little brains out and on my first try ended up passing 2 at the same time. but then life sort of just got in the way and i could never muster up the motivation to finish the remaining two parts. eventually enough time passed to where my credits expired and i’m back to square one again. then a couple years later, i decide that yes i do really want the cpa so i start studying again and was doing quite well actually. by this point, the exam had moved to being computer-based and you could take it whenever you wanted (except the last month in each quarter) and you only needed to pass one section at a time. should be piece of cake right? that’s what i thought too. so i started studying again, one section at a time and was able to pass each one on my first try. then with one last part to go, i get rocked by a breakup and was in no shape to attempt studying at all and by the time i’m all better, my 18 month window from the time i passed the first exam to when i needed to be completed with all four is almost over and i make a half-hearted attempt at the last section but fail miserably and just like that, my three credits are gone.

wow this could end up being a longer post and more pitiful one than i thought now that i’m reliving through everything again. then a year goes by and i decide that yes, again, that i still want to be a cpa and am confident that it shouldn’t be too hard to pass them again. i mean after all, i passed 3 of them on the first try right? um no. i sat for my first section, felt reasonably confident coming out of the exam only to find out a month or two later that i failed. wait what? failed? up to this point, i’d never failed any of the exams that i actually studied for so this result shook me to the very core and after that i just stayed away for about a year and did nothing but play pretty much.

now it’s mid-2010 and for some reason, i decide that i want to try it one-more-time. my friends have heard this before. one of my friends when i told her was like i don’t understand why you torture yourself with this. at some point you just have to give up which I agree with and that is why i told myself i have to give it one more shot and if i don’t get it, then i should seriously consider and reconcile myself with the fact that maybe being a cpa is just not in the cards for me.

part of the reason why i am having such a hard time giving this up is because 1) i want it. i really really do. there was a time when i really questioned whether accounting was for me and what the cpa meant but in the end, it comes down to the fact that i want it and would probably hate myself if i didn’t give it another try. why else did i pull so many all-nighters in public accounting and go through the trouble of getting my audit hours if i’m not even going to use that for anything? 2) i’ve never had to try too hard at anything and now with this, i am definitely being tested and while yes i know it’s just a test but over time, it’s become to mean so much more. it’s become to be a test of myself and whether i have the discipline and perseverance to ride this out to the end and truthfully i don’t know if i do which is kind of what scares me the most. willpower has never been my strong suit.

but regardless, i’m giving it another go and i took my first part in October and found out last week that I passed! not by much and this is considered to be the second easiest part but for me it was a huge step. i knew that if the score came back negative i would have a really hard time motivating myself to start from scratch again and getting one under my belt gives me just that extra little boost to believe that maybe just maybe i do have it in me to stick this out and finally once and for all get rid of this albatross around my neck. I hope I’m using this phrase correctly. i feel pretty stupid when I see friends whom I haven’t seen in years and when they ask what i’ve been up to my answer is always um, still studying for the cpa and then the conversation kind of just stops there.

i’ve been receiving a ton of support from my friends and people who are encouraging me and really believing in me but i think part of the problem is that while all of it has definitely been very helpful and much appreciated, i need to start believing in myself or else i’m never going to get this damn test out of the way. so for 2011, i’m not setting any “real” resolutions except to get my cpa and hopefully find my way back to the girl who had so much confidence in herself that passing the exam wasn’t a question of if but rather a question of when.