I was inspired to write this article after watching a video by Wong Fu Productions called "Komorebi (木漏れ日)." The video centers around the Japanese word Komorebi, a word that refers to the sunlight that filters between the leaves of trees. I highly encourage you to watch it.

Quite beautiful, isn't it? And this picture doesn't even do it justice. You can't help but have a sense of awe and peace when you witness Komorebi in reality. I highly encourage you to go to your nearest wooded area and see if you can spot this if you're looking for some motivation.

The video also goes on to talk about other things that you can't really describe, such as the feeling when you stand still in the midst of a moving crowd, the way that power lines make shapes in the sky, or that feeling of freedom once you finish a final or a big exam. But the video talks about so much more than that. Taking place in Tokyo where it has one of the highest youth suicide rates in the world solely because of grades, the video's ultimate message is that it doesn't matter how the world sees you, whether you have failed an exam, whether you didn't attend college, whatever it is. All that matters is how you see the world and what you do to see it.

As the school year starts to ramp up and especially with September being National Suicide Awareness Month, I couldn't help but feel burdened to say that no matter where you are in your journey through life, it's important to know that nothing else matters except how you see the world. Especially with all the negativity in the news, it's almost depressing to see all the backlash from hating on Colin Kaepernick's stance on the National Anthem, the violent protests in the news from the Black Lives Matter movement, how people hate the Presidential candidates, the list goes on. But it's in the face of negativity that we need to see the awesome things that life gives us. Like those moments that you can't quite describe, for example, seeing your family for the first time in 5 months or witnessing a breathtaking view and feeling small in the big Earth that we live in.

So as this school year comes and goes, I deeply encourage you to truly ask yourself how you see our society, but more importantly, how you see life. Some things aren't in our control, like maybe how we study all night and don't perform well on an exam, or maybe how some days nothing goes our way. And sometimes we let that define who we are and let that affect our actions and judge our character- the negativity shapes our identity if we don't act upon it. But it's important to know that despite those days where we might want everything to go away, all we have to do is take a step back, take a deep breath, and realize that all we can control is how we see life and how we see ourselves: our perspective. And that's what matters in the end. So shine through the jungle of life, shine like Komorebi.