https://www.canva.com/design/DAC0nNG5OrQ/qYp625ztv1-1oog3dnxXng/view?utm_content=DAC0nNG5OrQ&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=sharebutton
Intro
In the past ten years of my life I have struggled with many things like every other teen in this generation, but I handle them very differently. When I am faced with decisions or tasks I usually come up with two solutions; Do it to the best of my ability, or not at all. I live in black and white, I have no in between. Because of this my struggles have seemed worse than they should. 1. Art I am an all or nothing person. When I have a passion I am all in. When I don’t like something like a class or job I tend to do nothing. Very rarely do I have grey areas. With Art I am all in. Ever since I was able to hold a pencil or paintbrush I have been sharpening my art skills. As I got older other kids my age started to go out on weekends and get involved with after school activities, but I stayed in my bedroom, practicing new art techniques, trying to become the best artist I possibly could. My one passion in life is my art and I have become a better person because of it. I used to get into art shows and competitions, and I would strive to be better than everyone else. While doing this I began to get frustrated and started to dislike art because it seemed no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t be the best. Later on I accepted that I will never be the best artist in the world, or maybe not even the school, and I started to improve. All I began to strive for is to make every one of my pieces of art better than the last. Because of this mind set I began to better my skills faster than ever before. In April of this year my art teacher came over to my desk while I was working and asked me if I would like to submit a piece of my art in a statewide competition where one piece from each state is chosen to be in the capitol building. I thought nothing of it and agreed. Later on I asked who else submitted a piece of art and he said no one. Confused, I asked why, and he informed me that only one piece can be submitted from our school, and he chose me. Out of a school with over 700 students, I was chosen. To most this may not seem like a big deal but to me it meant a lot. I have come a long way in my art career but only after I had the right mind set. This taught me that I may never be the best at anything, but as long as I try to better myself based on my own skills, I will be the best me I can be. I don’t need to try to be the best at anything. Being in a grey area is perfectly okay. 2. Almost failing classes Because I am either all in or not at all school is something I’ve always disliked and struggled with. I don’t try as hard as I can and I am a master at procrastination. I tend to do just enough to get by. My experience in high school is much different than it was in earlier grades. Just getting by is no longer easy. The classes I thought would be blow offs were actually challenging and the ones I knew would be difficult seemed nearly impossible. An example of this would be my high school English classes. I have not gotten an A in an english class since middle school. I don’t particularly hate English, I just struggle with writing; therefore, I never want to do it. I have learned that just because I dislike something doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try my best on it. But I also can’t over do it in classes or things I have a passion for. There is always a balance that should be kept and now that I know this I am trying to apply it to everything I do in my life such as my final high school year and work. 3. Moving out of my parents house Families can have tight bonds but they can also be torn apart. I am a very passionate person but I can also be very cold. Someone I have always loved and looked up to is my grandma and it has been my dream to live with her. My relationship with my parents started out great but as I grew older and wanted to be more independent there was much more conflict between my parents and I. Things started out white between us but quickly turned black. I began to hate my parents and the place where I was supposed to feel safe and comfort in felt like a prison. I consistently went against their requests which turned into demands. In the spring of 2017 I decided I was fed up and I left my home. I finally was able to make the choice to live where I wanted. Once I started living with my grandma instead of my parents I got the independence I wanted, but with it came a lot more responsibility. I figured out that everything my parents were doing while I lived there wasn’t just to make me miserable, but it was to help me grow and become a good person. From this I have learned not to just think of relationships as such simple things. Relationships are not black and white in any way. I have learned that my relationships will have love and hate, happiness and disappointment. Learning how to compromise and think of things through in a different point of view has helped me shade in the missing grey areas in all kinds of relationships in my life whether it be my family, significant other, coworkers, and even myself.2 4. ADD I strongly believe that a large part of the reasons I am an all or nothing person is because of the biggest obstacle I have had to manage, my ADD. Since elementary school I have struggled with not only school, but every task in my life whether it be a small or large one. Once I start a project or task if I enjoy it I will be all in, but nothing else will get done because I get so involved in the one task and want to make it flawless. On the contrary, if I start something I don’t like so much it won’t get done. I will start it and give up. I will start multiple things at once and do poorly. Living my life like this for the past ten years has made the easiest things in life complicated for me. Realizing there was a deeper problem took way too long but recognizing it is the biggest step. I have learned that living life in black and white will make my mental state just as extreme. My whole life there has been a huge gap in my life but now that I know what it is I have been trying my hardest at shading in all the grey areas to fill it. Conclusion I am not the same person I was ten years ago, or even ten months ago. I don’t have my whole life planned out, nor do I feel like I should right now. I have developed the tools I need to be happy and successful in life. I have grown so much mentally by slowly shading in the missing grey areas in my life.
0 Comments
Hunger is a friend and a foe. Hunger makes eating enjoyable. Hunger is in our daily lives. Hunger will always come back. Hunger, a bodily function our brains create, helps us survive, yet still some people choose to ignore it.
Pizza, ice cream, McDonalds, chips, and cookies; all delicious delicacies. All of these, and many other foods, have something in common. Not only do they make mouths water, but they are also incredibly unhealthy. Because of hunger we choose to eat these disease causing creations. As a consequence most people don’t care if they have high caloric and fat values. Those people who do care however can react in different ways. Some people exercise to work it off, some avoid it entirely, and some turn to unhealthy means to avoid the tempting snacks. Hunger is the enemy that makes us want to eat so much so often. Hunger is the hand clenching tight to the stomachs of every living animal. Hunger dictates what, how much, and when we eat. For the unfortunate few who can fight it, hunger is an enemy that makes them run until they pass out, or eat until they can’t anymore then puking shortly after. Hunger helps cause eating disorders. Today a lot of people who haven’t experienced the hell hunger helps create think they know exactly what an eating disorder is. However, there are many forms and kinds of them. Many also believe that they only affect young females, which is false. Anyone of any gender, age, or race can develop an eating disorder. It is also one of the many disorders that social media and society as a whole has seemed to beautify. I, along with too many others, know that these horrible mind parasites are not beautiful. They are not a joke. And most importantly, eating disorders are not only an enemy in themselves, but they make an enemy out of our own mind with the help of hunger. Anorexia, bulimia, purging, and orthorexia are some of the unlimited number of eating disorders known today. Although these are some of the most common, there are some that many haven’t heard of. Another common misconception is that they all are dangerous. The definition of an eating disorder is any of a range of psychological disorders characterized by abnormal or disturbed eating habits. Some people may just suddenly change their diet to very different foods due to an impulsive thought that sticks in their head. I personally have experienced some of the more harsh ones. Hunger is a beast in my body and mind that demands for seemingly constant feeding and attention. It wants a full course meal three or more times a day. Six AM I wake up not only to my alarm, but to hunger. The groaning of my stomach turns into a scream as it grows hungrier, and I give in. Two minutes after binging on two bowls of cereal and leftovers from the night before the bathroom calls to me. I look in the mirror at the weak, pale, and unhealthy figure I crave to change for less than a minute before I can’t stand the sight and puke from the horrifying image that ha been reflected back at me. Lunch time comes around and I’ve already snacked on an apple and two granola bars in class. Getting the same double sized portion of school grub I walk to the same table I’ve sat at for years. I quickly inhale the tray, desperate to feed the monsters in my gut, but yet again the demons in my head overpower me and I’m making another bathroom run. Quietly I lock myself in the stall farthest from the hall and wait to make sure I’m alone. Heaving up the last bits of sin I consumed minutes ago the tears begin to flow silently. And the cycle repeats at dinner, dessert, midnight snack, and every meal every day. This is just one example of what an eating disorder is like. It is not a beautiful friend that helps someone achieve a thin, beautiful, model like complexion. It eats not at what is in our stomachs but what is in our minds. It tells us that we aren’t good enough. It insists that we should be thinner. Somehow it finds a way to effect everything and every thought in our daily lives. It is stubborn and persistent. It is the best friend of hunger. The monster in the stomach of the poor souls who have to experience this demonic disorder in their heads. Like a team the two work together to tear apart one’s mind, heart, and body When I hear the word focus I think of focusing in class on an assignment or focusing on the road while driving, but the word focus can have a much larger meaning. All my life I have been told to focus. On what? I ask.
All of my life I have been very different. I have a noticeably short attention span, even for a child. When I was 8 years old I was starting to fall behind in school, which confused my parents. Second grade was a big one at my old elementary school because of the tests we had to take. They determined whether or not we got held back, were going at the right pace, or were ahead of our grade. My scores came back, and my parents were at a loss of words. Although my class and homework grades suffered, my test scores showed I belonged in 4th grade. Not knowing what to do my parents decided to keep me in 3rd grade the following fall. I moved schools the summer before 4th grade. The new school new start feeling got me excited, but the excitement quickly turned into frustration. Falling behind yet again, school became this war that I couldn’t win. When parent teacher conferences came along, I sat across from Mr. Hall with my parents on either side of me. “You have a very smart child, but she can’t seem to keep focus in class. She is always talking with other students and falling behind,” he mentioned to them. When we got home that night, I got a very long talk that contained very little words from me. I couldn’t explain why I was falling behind. “You’re being lazy” or you need to stop being such a social butterfly” they kept insisting, but that wasn’t what was happening. A couple more weeks go by and I’m sitting at our dining room table doing my math homework when my mom walks in. “You’ve been on the same page for two hours, what is taking so long?” “I don’t know this is always how long it takes me, why?” “It should not be taking you so long.” Another couple weeks pass, and my parents observe me while I’m doing my homework, noticing that I am not slow because I am lazy or do other things instead of what I’m supposed to. I just simply couldn’t focus. At the time I didn’t think anything of it. I am a kid, of course my mind will wander and my attention span isn’t the best, so what? That school year I got diagnosed with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). I started taking medication in 6th grade for it because it got so bad I was failing my first year of middle school. Shortly after I started getting sick. I was hopeless. I stopped taking the pills and was left to figure it out on my own. Managing my symptoms was all I could do. I was losing world war me. I spent hours online researching how to keep focus during the day. Eating breakfast every day, chewing gum, eating whole grains, getting plenty of sleep but not too much, etc. I tried everything I could possibly think of, and then one day something clicked. While sitting in English 10, I was reading an essay on my computer for the assignment due at the end of class. Half an hour passed and I hardly made a dent in the reading. The classroom began to grow louder with the voices of the baboons who finished the assignment early. With every passing minute, I became more furious with myself because I couldn’t focus enough on that one stupid assignment. 40 minutes: that’s what I had left to finish it. With tears threatening to drown me, I jammed my earbuds into my phone and my ears and blasted my music as loud as I could; that’s when it happened. Within 20 minutes I completed the task in record time. From that moment on, my earbuds have been a necessity. I could finally focus on what I needed to. Not only in simple high school assignments, but in everyday activities. Focusing is a skill that is built upon every day of my life. I have learned what helps me and what doesn’t. Listening to music, being comfortable with my surroundings, staying calm, and being creative with my solutions are a couple examples of what does help. I still struggle with this on a daily basis, but it is a learning process that takes time and hard work, but most of all creativity. Instead of letting it frustrate me, I think of it as a challenge. It is an opportunity for me to experiment and try new ways of thinking and working. I have learned that not every war can be won, but with this one, I am winning one battle at a time. |