Still Learn and Grow

Over the last few days, I've heard comments about someone in our school. The comments were along the lines of that someone being too spoiled, that someone being hypercritical (mostly non-verbally), and that someone being more inquisitive than necessary. These may seem insignificant in nature, these subjects being "just an opinion" but I want to make this clear–that is an example of bullying. Ah, that word. We've seen it countless times in elementary and middle school, but we don't recognize it much in high school unless someone got physical or yelled inappropriately at someone. Much of bullying discussed in elementary and middle school are now referred to as "opinions", so it makes it sound like they have a right to say something mean about someone else. I'm not saying that I'm not guilty of this, but some people pass it off and don't realize it. This situation I talked about above is not an exception. Why is it not an exception? Why a...

Disclaimer: While this is mostly about suicide, many similar things can be said about substance abuse or distracted driving, so PLEASE consider the following. Recently a student in a neighboring town took their life. While learning about probability in math class, our teacher compared (statistically) the probability of us failing math unintentionally given we are students at our school vs. the probability of having serious thoughts of suicide given that we are a teenager in America. The main reason the prior has odds of slim to none is because the school constantly circulates those academic needs back to us and makes sure we know resources are available. That doesn't mean the resources to combat the latter are not available, but apparently some people have yet to be aware of or to comprehend their availability. My teacher then made it clear that any teacher, whether you have a class with them or not, is willing to talk things out. If you don't find luck, this is the ...

I wanted to share this because I come across people that have problems with themselves all of the time. I want to make sure those people understand that many (not all) people of whom they see as confident and secure are often on a very fine line of doubt. I appear to have a general "I don't give a butterfly's behind of what you think" attitude. Many people view me as super outgoing and confident, and I appreciate that. But though I have a lot of good days with generally good thoughts, I can't say it's like that all of the time. That's right, I doubt myself. A lot. These are all things I've thought of myself over many days for the last three years. "I'm not pretty enough to be a cheerleader." "I'm far from being as good of a musician as that person, maybe anyone." "I'm not smart enough to be in this class." There are days where I can just pick an outfit because it makes me feel like me, but other...