By Julia Angelotti, Editor
“Life is ten percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to it.”
Or so said my sixth grade social studies teacher, Adam Wickness.
He was, of course, quoting Ghandi. That saying had very little meaning to me in sixth grade. It seemed like just words strung together to make a saying. Yet now, just from being in high school for a year and a half, it’s becoming a saying that I often reference.
There are days where I feel like nothing’s going right-I wake up late, I can’t find the jeans I want to wear and I spill coffee on my shirt, only to come to come to school and realize I didn’t study for that Foundations test and my binder’s on the kitchen table. On those mornings-I am sure they are familiar to you, t00-this is the saying that helps me pull through.The more I think about it, I don’t see the point in being mad at people or the point in finding the worst in every situation. All it does is bring down my good mood, and I’m already under the delusion that I’m as badly off as a Hiroshima radiation victim most days.
Or so my friend Kylie says. It’s true. I’m not a Positive Polly every second of every day. If you have ever talked to me, you know my mood can change instantly, but I’m starting to see how pointless it is to look only at the negative, so I’m trying to find the best out of every situation.
The schedule change? I hate that thing. It’s been driving me insane. Seriously.
But you know what? I get to take two years of math next year, and that will help me understand it more. And maybe my ACT score will be better.
My friends? I’ve been complaining that we’re drifting apart. But with that, I’m finding out which friends will stick by me through everything. Sure, it’s a cliche. But it really is a part of high school life.
Personally-and I’m certain I’m not the only one-there’s a time in life where all I want to do is please the people a round me to the point where I lose myself in the mix. I’m trying to win everyone over, when really I only need to please myself.
Happiness, success, accomplishments and love all vary for each individual. The person to my right and to my left won’t see eye-to-eye. And that’s okay. I believe my life is what I make it. I control my own happiness. Nobody else.
Everybody’s going to make mistakes, but not everybody’s going to bounce back and change what they’ve done. We need to be less afraid to be different. Less afraid to be the one that makes the change.
I’ll be the first to admit that it’s easy to get caught up in pointless things that, at the end of the day, really don’t matter. It’s easy to do things to fit in with everyone else.But taking the easy path, which I’m starting to finally open my eyes and see it isn’t always the best way to go about things, only cheats myself.
So I challenge all of you: instead of doing something and wondering how others will react, think about how you’ll react. Because it’s the only opinion that matters.