Savannah D., Student, 17 years

As I indulge myself in the second year of the course, I begin to reflect on the development of my mind as a young lady and notice the little changes that are contributing to the maturing of my mindset and perspectives in the world. I have learned to find peace within every situation and try to separate unwanted thoughts so that they would not provoke any further events of depression. There is a huge difference in how I think and react from last year to this year. I tend to find myself logically thinking over situations that deserve pondering so that I can make better decisions. My decision-making process has changed vastly and I have learned to have a big want for bettering my mindset and driving myself away from being the big optimist I always was. Last year, I always found myself in a state of mental pain and had many breakdowns. I found myself having the worst possible thoughts up until hours as late as 5 in the morning, without doing any homework because I was too busy indulging myself in the worst states of myself. The distinguishment between last year and this year is that I began an exploration for a mindset that would showcase the best of me. This year I found myself doing whatever possible to make myself happy, even if it included letting go of people I knew were not good for me…

However, I found the strength to do it because I gained a desire for a positive me, a me that wanted to accomplish so much more than I ever got to because I was the one holding myself back. I contributed to my own faults and accounts of failure in the past and I now know the feeling of self-remorse. However this year I realized what the problem was; this year I knew a quest for peace of mind was needed.