The typical idea of self-care is to be a big event where you take a bubble bath and wear a facemask. While a bubble bath and a good book have significant benefits, it is not doable for me every day. Instead, I focus on the daily self-care practices I can do. I make sure that I am sleeping. Sometimes when you are in school, it becomes easy to give up your sleep for an extra hour to study. If I am not sleeping, then I am not at my best. Making sure that you get enough sleep is vital to your mental, physical, and emotional health. Along the same lines, I make sure that I get plenty of food and water. I have found that most of my problems can be fixed with a good night's rest and a snack. Every day I take at least an hour for myself, whether I am relaxing and watching a show, reading a book, or simply existing. This time allows me to recover from my day, process thoughts and emotions, and return refreshed. It also allows me to break up the monotony of my day and enables me to feel like I got the most out of my day. Taking that time for myself is how I feel fulfilled.

I have always been drawn to questions like a detective. I need to know how and why objects work, people act, and the world works. So I have always asked questions and challenged myself to figure out the answer to the why. My motto is that I am here to learn because if I already knew everything, I would not have any reason or need to be there. In the case of furthering my education, if I already knew everything, there would be no reason for me to go to school. This mindset has always helped me focus on learning and growing instead of winning, being the best, or avoiding failure. Viewing failure as an opportunity to learn and grow, instead of being a reflection of you or your moral character, is the fundamental key for me to keep a growth mindset. When it comes to receiving feedback, I have found that who is giving it to you and their motive matters. If someone wants to build you up and help you grow, you listen to that advice. When feedback comes from someone that solely wants to tare you down, that's the feedback that is best to ignore because it is not typically feedback. In my experience, when someone is giving you feedback that does not have your best interest at heart, it tends to attack your character or value as a person. Failing at a task, not knowing the answer, giving the wrong answer, none of these acts changes your worth or value as a person, and feedback should never make you feel as if it does.

I love who I am and how I critically think and question the world that we live in. I know it would be easy to say that I love my eyes or my hair, or another feature about myself, and while that is true, I think who we are matters a whole lot more than what we look like. I love that I am curious and question the world we live in. I love that I have chosen to be someone warm and kind in a world that is cruel and cold. I know that it can seem pointless, but I think people matter. I think it is easier to be kind to others, to hold someone else's hand when they are going through a hard time, and listen when they need to be heard, and I think it is what most people need. I cannot pinpoint when I chose that this is who I was going to be, but I love that I did. I love that I am stubborn enough where other people's cruelty did not change my decision. I love that I am discovering new aspects about myself every day.I love that I have the power to change if I want to. There is an unique aspect of loving who you are and choose to be, no one else knows the unfiltered thoughts, the happy, traumatic, sad, funny stories that have shaped you. But you know. It is truly unique to know all of that and at the end of the day say I love myself and I love the way I treat others. At the end of the day, unless you are an outliner, people do not remember what you said or what you look like, but they will remember how you made them feel.

Listening to those you are trying to help and continuing to educate yourself. As someone who feels passionately about better lives, specifically lives that are impacted by social issues that were created by institutional racism, the best way to help these people is to listen to them. Studies have shown that our current criminal justice system and economic system work together to create crime. Social workers and advocates have found great improvements when listening to those affected and making the changes they need a reality. If I had the power and influence, I would give it to these groups and individuals so they can benefit their own communities, because they are the people who know what they need best. In addition, I would work to improve our education system. I would like to provide our schools with better funding to better equip students with knowledge. I would make schools accessible, by listening to impoverished and disabled students and making their suggestions a reality. Currently, education is mostly funded by the taxes of the parents, which creates inequality due to funding. This is a disservice to our children and to our country. I would use my influence to prioritize people and put in place programs that are helpful for the communities as well as self-sustaining. I want us to build something that lasts and benefits people long after we are gone.