Hi,

I’m Sara Miller. I am 17-years-old. I am about to be a senior in high school. I have brown hair with blonde highlights. I have bright blue eyes, like my grandfather’s. I play softball. I play field hockey. I have a little brother, a mom and a dad who love me dearly. I get good grades. These are all facts about me which give you information about me, but do not define me.

I keep an extra protein bar in my car for when there is a person experiencing homelessness on a street corner begging for money. I love dogs because they are beautiful, loyal and always light up a room. I dedicate most of my weekends to softball tournaments because I love the challenge of playing a game designed for you to fail, a good batting average is .300, which means you fail 70 percent of the time. I sing to my favorite songs, even though I sound worse than nails on a chalk board. These qualities of mine do define me.

Society defines people in closed-minded judgement. Blondes are dumb. Teenagers are crazy. Brown eyes are poop. Rich people are snobs. People who study are nerds. Sure it is a fact that a particular person studies, maybe they are interested in the topic, and are pursuing a passion. Maybe rich people have fancier items, but does that mean that they don’t donate to charity or understand the value of money? Society looks at the surface of people and then categorizes them, but we are not the category that society chooses for us.

What defines people are qualities which they can control. A person’s kindness towards others or the way they make other people feel. One’s interests or passions. Their choice of honesty over lies. The blind optimism about life. The people they love and the reasons they love. We as people define ourselves in how we live our lives. We can be as beautiful or as cynical as we wish to be.

Other people’s judgments cannot define us. In fact, we shouldn't even be concerned with their judgments. What we should do is avoid carrying on the mistreatment. If you stop yourself from making easy, close-minded judgments, you will see the world in a whole new way. That emo kid who is the “next school shooter” can be seen for the puppy-loving, lighthearted person that they may be. People will surprise you.

We will be misjudged, mistreated and misunderstood. And that is OK because we are also defined by how we react to uncontrollable events. We are not the events that happen to us or the looks we were born with. We are who we chose to be and what we learn from our experiences. We are unique. We are important. Moreover, we are whoever we wish to be.