One of the biggest blessings put into my life is my mom, Sharon Severn. Even from birth when meeting me for the first time, she made it clear that she was my forever best friend. My mom showed me what being a wonderful person is and she sure did do a great job for not only me but everyone around her. Back in February of 2021, my mom was diagnosed with two autoimmune diseases. One of them is scleroderma which causes the tightening and hardening of tissues in the body. The disease eats away at parts of the body over time. I remember her coming home with the news and I just knew something wasn't right. She told us that the doctor said she only had 8 years left if she didn't go into remission. My mom isn't the type to mope around after hearing bad news. Her response was, "Well if I have 8 years left, I'm gonna get started doing everything I've ever wanted to." In those times, I feel like my family and I hurt more than my mom, the person who had the disease. She never let the bad news get to her even when it was more terrible than ever imagined. My mom taught me how to be selfless. Whenever we had financial struggles, my mom got a job even with her health issues. She worked doubles but always seemed happy to help our family. I never saw her complain about working or her body hurting. We told her that she didn't have to work but she was so persistent in doing so. Even on her days off, she wouldn't spend them to herself, she would spend them with her kids and doing activities we wanted to do. I knew she was off when I would wake up to the smell of breakfast food and feel the vibrations of loud music. Those days were always the best. They say "mother knows best" and that saying is so true. My mom has a very one-of-a-kind personality and she always knows the right thing to say. Everyone whether it be her kids, my friends, or even her co-workers would come to her for advice or just someone to talk to. Whether it be at 2 am or 4 p.m., I knew she'd always be there. She is someone that you could always count on even if you felt like you had no one. My mom taught me to always have faith in God. She grew up in the church with her dad being the pastor and her mom the choir leader. We grew up always knowing to thank God for everything in our life. Her answer to everything was to pray to God. My mom always says, "I don't want you to depend on anyone or anything for happiness but God, not even me." She made it clear to us that with God anything is possible. My mom is someone that you would only come across once in your life. Because of her, I know how to be strong, selfless and faithful through all seasons of life. My mom has made an impact on multiple lives because of her admiring personality. She was a mother figure for not just her kids but everyone around her. She is one of my favorite people in the world and I aspire to be like her every day.

Children’s minds are easily shaped. The things they learn from the world, are most times taken with them for the rest of their lives. A lot of us have made mistakes in life that started at young ages that could have easily been fixed. One of the biggest obstacles that I faced and conquered is burnout. For the majority of my life, I never felt like I was enough so I pushed myself hard to feel like it. I let grades define me. I let my appearance define me. I let how good I was at sports and recreational activities define me. Achievements defined me. Even little mishaps defined me. Little did I know, holding myself to these high standards would be my downfall. Not only was I constantly pushing for better with no breaks, every mistake or mess-up I made ate me alive. Sooner or later, nothing was ever enough and I reached burnout. Burnout is something that I feel is not discussed enough in society. So many kids that I go to school with all talk about how tired of life they are and it is because the need to constantly succeed can be draining. It takes time to burn out, being overworked over and over again. But the weird thing about burnout is that it takes so long to happen and takes just as long to overcome it. It is easier said than done, but I had to realize that I am already enough. I had to stop and appreciate all of the goals that I had accomplished and use them as motivation for my next big goals. Before I even thought of making a new goal, I had to know whether or not I succeeded or failed at it, I cannot let it define me. They always say that it's harder to be nice to yourself and easier to point out the bad. Accepting these things unrevealed greater truth to that saying because when I tell you it took a long time to not beat myself up, I mean it. But in time, I healed and grew out of constantly putting so much unnecessary stress on myself. Now I try to spread my knowledge to anyone that I see struggling with what I did. Now I’m not saying that it's not important to make goals, it is. However, it is just as important to appreciate all of the achievements you have done instead of constantly thinking it's not enough. Society has a pattern of letting all of our wins and losses define us. We think because this person has great grades, great athleticism, or a great body, that they are worth more. This starts from an early age because children are influenced very easily. We must learn to be content with ourselves and not let mistakes or achievements define us. It is very crucial to learn how to achieve goals and make sure that your mental health is okay while doing so. Setbacks and failures are bound to happen in life. However, it is just as important to not let it define you and to learn from them to go forward. Putting such unreasonable pressure on oneself can help prevent burnout. Society needs to stop defining people based on achievements which will decrease such unnecessary pressure resulting in burnout. After all, life is short and no one wants to spend their constantly thinking they're not enough.

Start Caring. As someone who grew up being very sensitive and emotional, this came naturally to me but I always viewed it as an insecurity. People around me and social media made me think caring or something hurting my feelings was wrong. Growing up, whenever something bothered me or something rude was said to me I was always told to stop being sensitive or to toughen up. These incidents range from mean nicknames to rude things. However, I almost always got the same answer when I expressed my feelings, "get over it". This caused me to hide my feelings and think that feeling things were wrong. Years later, this feeling grew with the evolution of social media. If you were to scroll through the comments of almost all current social media platforms, you will see mostly negativity. When people post videos showing their feelings or hard situations, there made fun of or people make memes out of them. I witnessed this firsthand in a college group Snapchat story I'm in. A girl had posted an email she wrote regarding her not being able to go through with a job and asked for advice on if what she said was okay. Multiple people then said that she was asking for a pity party and then made jokes about her committing suicide because of the comments. When this girl stood up for herself, her advice given by people in the group story was to stop adding because it was "digging her grave deeper". Everyone just looked over her feelings and made her feel bad for going through something. After seeing and experiencing this, I realized that the world needed to care more. First, I had to start with myself. I had to stop seeing myself being sensitive or caring as something to hide. I reached out to the girl who was bullied in the story. I told her I was that I saw the story and that no one deserves to be treated like that. I let her know that I was there for her if she needed any advice and she was very appreciative. She called me a "good human being" and that felt pretty good. From that point, I knew that I had to start caring. I try to show people around me that I'm here for them and not make them feel stupid for being upset. I also check in on people in my life a lot and ask how they're doing, especially their mental health. Even when I see tiktoks of people who are upset about their situations, whether I know them or not I make it a point to comment something nice. Caring is not hard. Showing someone that their feelings aren't overlooked can go a long way. Society makes us feel as if feeling things and showing true feelings is wrong. It's almost like a trend to be numb to hard situations and not let any feeling of being upset slip. When a person expresses feelings, there is no reason to make them feel wrong about it. So many young kids are dealing with depression and the majority of has to do with them being afraid of people making their problems feel small. If society would bring people up or show more sympathy then it would decrease the amount of depression and anxiety that people have. Start Caring.