Yes, it takes a whole lot of time, sometimes almost whole lifetimes! But, if you're working on that, then what other people say doesn't bother one much because you're concentrating on working on something and know what you're working on. If you want to register for college, doesn't matter if it takes one try or ten as long as you're trying.

No, most other people are not going to understand and a lot of them are going to be negative so I don't pay a whole lot of attention to those people. You know who you can, or would like to, trust, only pay attention to them. If they say the sky is blue and you think it looks like rain, just "decide" it may look like rain, but it ain't gonna and work on whatever you want to work on during blue skies.