"Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyways" -Mother Teresa

The article I am about to write is one that some people will wonder why I even wrote it, but my reasons are my own. I feel this is something worth talking about and I hope I can shed some light on the subject. The topic of this piece will be two things I would want my high school/ freshman self to know.

These are two of the hardest lessons I had to learn my freshman year of college and only through the grace of Jesus Christ and the prayers of my friends and family was I able to make it through.

1. You should never strive to fail. But inevitably you will regardless of how hard you work.

In high school I only started to take my grades seriously my sophomore year (a very irresponsible thing to do) and it subsequently still has its side effects in my academic life today as a college sophomore. I wish I had known going into college that the amount of work you put in did not guarantee a high success level in classes. I am proud to say that my freshman year of college was the hardest thing I had ever worked to do well in that I can remember. However, what some people don't know is that it was the time in my life where I failed the most. Thankfully through the encouragement of my friends and the BCM leaders, Scott Smith and Katie Troutman, I survived my first year. I wish I had known that failure today does not mean that the world is coming to a horrible end and that waiting patiently on the LORD will bring peace in the day of HIS choosing.

2. College is the time where the pressure of other peoples' perception of you is in your control and you can let it hurt you or allow you to grow.

Like most people who have a sensitive nature I make a conscious effort to come off like nothing gets to me in front of people I do not know. One big area of trouble I allow myself to be in is what other people think about me. This personality trait causes people like me to be over aware of how I act, walk, talk, dress and everything else a human being can do. What some people don't know is that for a portion of my childhood I was raised by a single mother. A wonderful, strong, inspiring and amazing woman who I consider my best friend in the entire world above all others. However, being raised by a single mother during the major developmental stages of my life lead me to develop certain mannerisms. For example, most of my friends were girls, I cared how I look, and I had a hard time connecting to guys in school. Now let's be honest, these kinds of behaviors lead children in schools to have a target for their aggression because of an apparent femininity above the average teenage male. Going into college I was intent on changing my personality so I could fix these "problems" I saw in myself that I hated. A lesson that I have learned from my freshman year is that most decent people don't care about anything other than if you are also a decent person. I would want my freshman self to know that all I would have to do is be honest and true to myself and the friends I would make would be amazing and true.