Lately, I have come to the realization, that those I have been surrounding myself with, have not been benefiting my urge to grow. Negativity has been everywhere around me in disguise; competing and bitterly ruining the good things in my life without my control.

"If all 'people' were taught how to love each other fiercely instead of how to compete with each other and hate their own bodies, what a different and beautiful world we would live in."

- Nikita Gill

People are no longer trying to inspire and support you, rather, said person would rather witness you fail to make themselves feel better. To this day, although I veered off course a time or two, I have continued to go out of my way to bring confidence to those around me; but I am never able to find that others will do the same.

It's sad.

Today's generation is the age of "faking it." You see people caring more about their Instagram feed than a grade on a test. Treating people as your "goals," when our goals should really be: getting a college degree, writing a book, and helping others. Maybe if we spent a little less time picking an Instagram filter, we would feel a lot less empty on the inside. We pretend we are living this luxurious life and that we have it all together, in hopes people believe it. At the end of the day we really do not know the truth behind that picture of the girl and her crooked smile at that party last night; when in reality, it could have taken everything in her power just to face the truth the next morning.

When did it change for some people to care more about the world thinking they are happy than themselves.

Recently the personalities of today's youth have been nothing less than spiteful, and I am not too sure of where this came from. The idea of caring less about things and people in life is cool. That being mean and bringing people down is cool.

News flash, it is not!

It is not cool to hate on people's dreams. It is not cool to treat people less than they deserve. And it is certainly not cool to be someone you are not.

It is time for me to stop focusing on others, things, and social media. Instead, it is time to focusing on living my life. Ignore when other's talk behind my back or try to undermine me. I am not going to let that happen anymore. I am an amazing person, and there are amazing people around me too, and I plan on telling them that when the time comes.

My true aspiration in life is to be happy and I can confidently say at newly 20 years old, I am without a doubt happy.

Ask yourself this, If at 20 years old I am able to aware myself of my flaws and trust I will take that and grow; then why can't you?