Being a teenager is striving for perfection and losing yourself along the way, only to discover who you truly are.

The transition from juvenility to adulthood is a blur filled with success, failure, love, and regrets. Each successful moment brings you to new heights, and each of those moments brings you an invincible feeling. Along this path each failure becomes a weight, tied to you, so that each failure remains with you and haunts even your happiest of times. Love is another moment that you soar high above the clouds only to be brought down by pain, loss, and regrets.

Being a teenager, you will feel internal and external pressures to achieve perfection through other people’s eyes, but you must achieve your dreams, perfect or imperfect. Your parents, teachers, and school counselors will unintentionally make you feel like you aren’t good enough because you will sometimes fail and won’t always know what you want in the future. You are not a failure. It doesn’t matter about how smooth your journey was or how fast you reached your destination. All that matters is what you learned from the journey, who you have become, and if you got up after you have fallen.

During your teen years, it is easy to feel lost and want to simply give up. You must remind yourself that live will never be easy or fair, so stay strong and keep moving forward. Push all the thoughts of self doubt, and “what if I’m not...” our of your mind. During hard times always remember that life gets better, and continue to be positive through good times.