For the majority of my life, I have had problems. Growing up, I struggled with my family. I struggle with depression, anxiety, ADHD, and autism. I have had all of these issues, but I have never let them stop me. I used to think that my problems defined me, but I have realized that overcoming and controlling my issues has only made me stronger in everything I do. I used to think that I was tortured by God for a past life or something, but I now know that my issues and the ability to overcome them has made me who I am.
In my process of solving my own issues, I realized that they weren’t the only things I had to solve. In school everything was solvable, and I found solace in solving a math problem or a rhetorical analysis when my own issues felt too large. As I sat through AP Calculus everyday with my friend Olive, I realized that the effort I exerted into my school work was directly proportional to how manageable my issues were. The more experience I had with hard problems, the more I was capable of solving them. As my experience grew so did my work ethic. I found myself completing homework I previously would have ignored, and I found myself trying to take harder classes instead of classes where I’d get an easy A.
I didn’t do this on my own though. My friend Olive, who I mentioned earlier, was one of the greatest influences in my life. She’s a year younger than me in school, but she is incredibly intelligent. She is a hard worker and someone near and dear to me. In my sophomore year of high school, her freshman year, she joined my Algebra II class. She would do her homework everyday after we finished the lesson. Not wanting to get left behind, I joined her. She would choose to read instead of looking at Instagram, and I joined her. She took classes that pushed her to the absolute limit, and I joined her.
As the years passed, I slowly became more independent. Instead of following in Olive’s footsteps, I was pushing myself to do homework, read, and challenge myself. I was wanting to challenge myself, and as I was going into college applications, and, what I see as, the next step in my life I didn’t want to let up. I wanted to go into a profession that would push me everyday to be better than the last. I wanted to be like Olive.
