It’s my senior year of high school. I’m in my one-bedroom apartment, which I share with six other family members – my two brothers, mother, father, and brown pit bull named Spike— in one of the most poverty-stricken neighborhoods in Cleveland. I will graduate high school in two days and leave for a small college in Hanover, New Hampshire. I will be attending Dartmouth, one of seven prestigious Ivy League schools in the nation. I got a full ride scholarship that opens doors of possibility previously closed to people like me. In this moment of fear, uncertainty, and doubt, I’m not a chosen one yet, those mythological people that overcome unimaginable obstacles and succeed despite naysayers, non-believers, and haters. I haven’t yet climbed the mountain in front of me, which is massive, towering, and seemingly impossible.

I do what any scared seventeen would do: I try to draw strength from outside sources. I blast Eminem’s Lose Yourself, inhaling courage from each line of the song and 808 beats that blares through the crumbling walls of my apartment. “You better lose yourself in the moment, you own it, you betta never let it go….You only get one shot.”

Eminem is right. This might be my only shot. The pressure is overwhelming. I know what I’m up against. My guidance counselor has already laid out the daunting statistics to try and dissuade me from going to Dartmouth. He doesn’t want to see me fail is what he says, but in reality, he doesn’t believe in me. “Only twenty one percent of first-generation college students graduate college.” “The first-generation student dropout rate is four times higher than that of students with at least one parent with a degree.”

I wish I had a manual for how to survive college. I need a book to tell me how to get through he challenges ahead. While it’s not a manual, my second book, The Chosen One: A First-Generation Ivy League Odyssey, is a poignant detailing of my journey from that one-bedroom apartment to the halls of elite, higher education at Dartmouth. I have boiled down the fruits of my struggle into lessons about what it takes to ascend and climb the mountain of impossibility that stops so many who are unable to overcome the challenges, which are legion and brutal.

The most important lessons being finding support and believers early on. Believers, people who can see your gifts despite where you have come from, are critical in giving you the strength to keep going. Taking advantage of the tremendous resources –including counselors, networking, tutors, academic student centers—available on prestigious campuses can bridge the gap between where you start and where you end up.

Ultimately The Chosen One proves that while first generation college students start generations behind, the path demands you keep walking forward no matter how hard it may become. Instead of focusing on the massive journey ahead, one should instead keep their perspective trained on the next right step in front of them. Eventually, all of those steps add up to an amazing story, but in the midst of battle, the only thing that matters are the individual strikes, which brings you closer to victory. Your success as a chosen one is not your own. It is shared by your family, community, and generations coming behind you. The chosen one becomes a beacon of possibility for the others, a burden that no individual should have to bear, but is asked of those standing at the intersection of hope, endurance, and luck.

Newly appointed supreme court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson told a story of how as freshmen at Harvard, she began to feel out of place and was uncertain if she should remain at the school. In this deep state of uncertainty and self-doubt, she passed another black woman student on campus who must have seen the look for fear and dread on her face. The other student, whom she did not know, said one thing to her as they passed each other: “persevere,” which motivated Ketanji to keep going despite her internal uncertainty. Ketanji kept walking and eventually walked all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States of America. That is the power of persevering.

My message in The Chosen One is the same: persevere. Do not miss your chance to blow. This opportunity comes once in a lifetime, as Eminem raps. It is an opportunity that has been delivered to you by the blood, sweat, and tears of the ones that came before you. Your one job on the path is to keep walking and persevere. May the force be with you as you walk forward, always.