My struggles with mental health over the years have been a major contributing factor to my current perspective of the world, my goals, how I manage my relationships, and how I live my daily life. Mental health has been a constant struggle throughout my life, my mental health has held me back from accomplishing my goals, and has significantly influenced my level of happiness. It's been very challenging living my daily life, facing challenges in my personal and professional life while also having my mental health dragging me down constantly and ruling over me like a dark shadow. Although my journey with my mental health hasn’t been an easy one in any sense I see the lessons I’ve learned and the experience I’ve gained as a necessary evil, these lessons and experiences with managing and bettering my mental health have made a stornger individual. My mental health and overcoming challenges of my mental health has opened my eyes to a new perspective and a new understanding of this world. Like mental health, life is very unforgiving, through so many challenges with my mental health I’ve learned to grow as a person and learned from the challenges I’ve faced to make me better prepared for what is ahead. I’ve learned to search for the positive in every single situation, even if this may be days, months or years away. Struggling with my mental health over the years has made me question my goals and aspirations in life and question who I am as well, but fighting through I’ve learned to recognize my worth, my potential and taught myself to never doubt myself no matter what, no matter what the challenge is and no matter how difficult it maybe. Relationships and mental health have a lot of similarities, they both are not something that are easy to manage.

My experiences growing up in a very low-income family is a very prominent reason that I work so hard and dream so grandly. My childhood wasn't the stablest that one could hope for, I learned from a very young age that this world can be very cruel and one has to always look out for themselves first before anyone else. I had to grow up very quickly, from a very young age I became independent and took care of myself a majority of the time, my family came from very limited means and constantly struggled to make ends meet. Although I always wish that I had a better childhood filled with good memories outweighing the bad, I have learned to appreciate these rugged childhood years, that have molded me into this strong, independent individual that I am today and has given me the unmatched drive that I have to succeded in life. Coming from a very low-income family and experiencing extreme difficulties in life, like worrying about where my next meal will come from or worrying about having somewhere to live the next day I never wanted a single person to have to experience the same things I went through in my adolescence. I have always wanted to help others that are struggling like I once did when I was young and make a positive impact on this world. I have dreamed of becoming a doctor and helping those that can not help themselves, people who have been affected by war, conflict, and illness. I'm confident that I have the stamina to accomplish my goal of becoming a doctor and make a great impact on this world by serving my community in Arizona and through volunteering internationally with organizations like Doctors Without Borders to help communities that are severely limited to healthcare services.

2020 was the most grueling period of my entire life, I lost family and friends to suicide, and at one point I even lost hope. This hellacious time pushed me to new limits, testing me every single day, bringing me to my knees from grief one day, and then lending a hand to help me up the next day just to cut my legs out from under me the next. Although this past year was a time in my life where I didn't see any end in sight I continued to persist, I knew that I could not give up, I had to remain as positive as possible no matter what. 2020 was a very toilsome time for myself and the whole world I look back on this time and see it as a growing pain, I have strengthened my character and learned countless life lessons. Even though losing loved ones can never be planned for or expected in any way I have learned yet again that not everyone can be in our lives forever and to cherish every single moment no matter how little it may be. Another important life lessons that I've learned this past year is to take care of myself before others, I have always been the type of person that puts the needs of my friends and family before myself no matter what, but my overall health took a serious hit this past year and opened my eyes that if I'm not taking care of myself and putting myself first then I won't be able to help my loved ones when they may truly need me. There were a lot of negative experiences in 2020, but there were still a few great experiences and memories with loved ones who are no longer by my side that I will never forget. I will always remember the good times with my family and friends, like backyard bonfires, weekend trips to California, and BBQs in the summer. These amazing memories and experiences will have a special place in my heart, these will be what I hold on to forever and will give me the strength to continue striving for success and to never give up. I had my year planned out so perfectly but like many others, everything crumbled to pieces early in the year when we learned about COVID-19. I've always been very passionate about helping those that have been affected by conflict, war, or illness, this past year I had planned to travel to Peru and Ecuador for several weeks to help support clinics, overwhelmed and understaffed and local communities across the country where healthcare services are severely limited but unfortunately was cancelled due to COVID-19. Although I was devasted when this volunteer opportunity was cancelled due to COVID-19 concerns and many other aspects of my life have been seriously affected I have not given up hope, I'm confident that these experiences over the past year have only strengthened me as an individual and also fortified my aspirations to become a doctor and help those in need in the state of Arizona and throughout the world.

As I sit here trying to thinking of someone to write about, someone who has been extremely influential, someone who has had a positive impact on my life, someone who has driven me to succeed in life, I’m honestly struggling to think of anyone. The only person that has pushed me beyond my limits and never given up on me has been, well myself. Although I may not have had any true role models growing up and this essay may not qualify, I have learned a lot of things from myself along the way and discovered who I am, how to be a better human being, and a stronger individual I’ve faced many challenges in my life and I’ve always faced them with the same mentality, never give up, and if it’s more challenging than I had anticipated find a way to learn from this challenge to better prepare myself for the next challenge ahead. I’ve continued to apply lessons I’ve learned to my day to day life, like “Good things happen to those who never give up”, this is a lesson I learned when I was very young. I was in elementary school at the time I excelled at most tasks, but was having a lot of difficulty with math, everything about math confused me so much, it frustrated me, I was failing the class and had to stay after school to get tutoring most days, my teacher saw how much I was struggling, but she was so positive and believed in me so much it made the difference. My teacher continued to work with me after class for the next few weeks, my understanding began to improve and so did my grade in her class. As the months went by and the school year came closer and closer to an end I received something in the mail from my school about a week before the school year was over, it was a gift certificate to Pizza Hut for $40, there was also a short letter that came with it from my teacher that said “Daniel I’ve been working with you and you’ve been trying so hard I could see it everyday. You never gave up and you’ve become my best student. Congrats!” Although this was a very small gesture from my teacher when I was about 9 years old, it made a huge impact on me and no matter how many challenges or how difficult the challenges I had to face, I never gave up and I will never give up. As I continue my education and pursue my goal to become a doctor I want to mentor and motivate my peers to never give up no matter what, no matter if friends or family doubt your abilities, no matter if you at times don’t believe in yourself. I want to always be someone who motivates and drives other to succeed in every aspect of their life.

I’ve been trying to think of a specific time where I experienced adversity and it had a greater impact than any other time in my life, but I can’t because I have been experiencing adversity every single day of my life and have had countless encounters. Whether it be financial adversity or social adversity, it’s been a constant struggle throughout my life and I had to learn to become an independent individual from a very young age to survive in this world. I never had healthy or stable relationships that most people have in their life with family and parents to guide them in the right direction or support them to become successful individuals. I’ve always had to be that person for myself, I had to become my own support system and push myself to be the best in everything that I did and believe in myself when no one else did. From a very young age, I learned that even if someone doesn’t believe in you, puts you down, or talks badly about you, you shouldn’t let it affect you or change who you are. I never understood the reasons why my relationships with family were so verbally abusive and discouraging until I got older and learned that if someone can’t do something or doesn’t have the self-confidence to try and do better, they’ll tell you that you can’t do that task or you’re not smart enough or not good enough. I never let these harsh words or discouragement affect me in any aspect of my life, if anything these poor experiences only strengthened my belief in myself and my drive to succeed in life and become a better person. No matter what the challenge was in my life I knocked it down and kept asking for more, I excelled in every single school year, was always at the top of my class, and excelled in sports as well. I saw sports as an opportunity and I took full advantage of it, if I wasn’t doing schoolwork or learning something new then I was at the baseball field practicing pitching. Sports kept me sane throughout school, helped me stay active, and helped me take out any frustrations I had constructively. Throughout my school years, I remember always helping my teacher and explaining things to other students in class if they didn’t understand something, I loved to help others and see the spark in someone’s eyes when it finally clicks and they learn something new. I never let my experiences as a child affect how I treated others, I loved to help others whether it be in school or throughout my career in customer service, I love to praise others in every possible situation and see someone become a stronger individual. Although I never had healthy relationships with my parents and family that I needed in life and yearned for to feel complete, confident, and happy growing up, I found my happiness in seeing myself prosper academically and become a more independent individual with an unmatched drive. The adversity I've experienced had taught me that the only thing that truly matters in this world is you, it doesn’t matter how loud or mean the outside world can be, you just have to believe in yourself, you have to believe that you’re good enough, believe that you’re smart enough and block out everything else. You can’t allow the negativity in life to affect your positivity and sanity, you just have to continue emitting positivity and hope that positivity changes the world and comes back to you in some way, no matter how little it may be. I don’t see the adversity I’ve experienced throughout my life as a negative, I see this adversity as a necessity, if it wasn’t there who would I be today? I would be an entirely different person, I wouldn’t have the drive nor the self-confidence I have today to go out into the world with a smile on my face every day wanting to make this world better. The adversity I've experienced throughout my life and continue to encounter in my future will be my driving force, it will without a doubt make me a stronger individual and help me accomplish my childhood goal of becoming a doctor.