While pondering who or what has been the greatest driving force in my life, I asked a friend about what I should write about. My friend replied, "Who has been someone that has always been there for you, that you relied on, and that you looked up to?" No one came to mind, and I slowly realized that my anchor, my driving force, was Jesus. You reading this might not believe in a higher power, and you might not get those who have faith in Jesus, but spare me a moment to elaborate. My faith and relationship with Jesus are the heartbeat of everything I do. He healed and mended my heart as a child, and later in life, all of the self-inflicted scars on my body were deemed permanent. Time and time again, He grabbed hold of me and drew me out of deep waters. Because of this, I have promised to devote my life to making others feel the deep love and everlasting support that Jesus has consistently shown me. As I began to read the Bible, a theme constantly echoed throughout the books: the importance of love. "Faith, hope, and love remain, but the greatest of these is love," or "Love others as I have loved you." Regardless of your faith, doesn't your heart crave unwavering love? God's second greatest commandment is to love others, which our shattered world needs so immensely. I am so inspired by the way Jesus loved others, and my life's mission is so clear- to mirror His compassion, grace, kindness, joy, selflessness, humility, and peace to everyone, always. The desire to emulate every action He would take if He were on earth today fuels my every interaction. Our world has fallen deep into an epidemic of selfishness, which is creating brokenness and loneliness. Every soul will endure sadness, hardship, and heartbreak, but the solution lies in how we choose to treat others. One at a time, we need to agree to put others before ourselves and treat everyone the same way Jesus did. We must stop this tremendous divide between one another simply because you might disagree. Rather than responding with hate, judgment, bitterness, and condemnation, my commitment is to live by love, understanding, forgiveness, and grace. When I picture Jesus, I see him standing with open arms regardless of my past, brokenness, mistakes, grief, and imperfections. His desire is simple—to love His children and accept them with unconditional love and outstretched arms. Imagine a world where we all looked at each other with open arms. I am blessed to be here today, and I am beyond thankful for every way he has healed me. In return, I am committed to imitating Jesus to the best of my ability, contributing to changing our broken world by representing the beautiful love of Jesus.

Over my 11 years of playing volleyball, I have learned some priceless lessons and qualities. I will forever be grateful for what volleyball has given me. The three most valuable lessons I have learned from volleyball are resilience, the value of hard work, and the importance of being an encouraging person. In the game of volleyball, the game isn’t over until the score hits 25. You have no clock to limit you, and you can come back from a score of 24-0 and still win the game. I will take this mentality for the rest of my life because I believe that putting in your full effort all of the time is so important. I have also seen throughout my years that if you don't put in the effort to get better, you will not see improvement. Investing your time and energy in extra reps and practices and giving your full effort at every training session is what sets people apart. Success isn't earned by luck; it is earned by working as diligently as you can. In my own career, I have seen this hard work pay off, as I was just voted our conference player of the year, and I will take this drive to continue to be successful in the future in my career, college, family, and collegiate volleyball. Lastly, volleyball has taught me that in life, if you can’t cheer on and encourage others, you will be unsuccessful. In a game that runs on mistakes, I've realized that failing to encourage and uplift those who are struggling or making errors can hinder the team's unity. I always strive to be the most supportive person on the court because I want others to know I have their back. I want to implement this in my life all the time. Reflecting on the challenges I've faced, I can't help but think of my injury last year. I was having one of the best seasons of my career, playing all-around and preparing for my international tournament, when I landed on a girl's foot who had come under the net. I was so shattered that I had gotten this injury in the prime of my season, and I was even more heartbroken when I was falsely diagnosed with just a sprain to find out that it was fractured. This injury, which seemed like a major setback, ended up teaching me so much about the sport on the bench. I decided to change my attitude about the situation, try to be the best supporter on the bench and learn as much as I could. This injury made me a stronger volleyball player, and my technique was so much better. In the end, I am grateful this injury happened; it taught me a lot, and I am such a better volleyball player because of it. With college on the horizon, I am so happy to be committed to continuing to play volleyball while I get a higher education. Volleyball has set me up for a hopeful future with all of the attributes it has taught me. I am so excited to see what this next chapter brings. I'm excited to embrace the next chapter and am committed to consistently giving my all, embracing hard work, and growing as I move forward. I am thrilled to see where my life can go if I just keep giving my all!

Leadership, a term often tossed around, carries a lot of significance. To me, as student body president and volleyball team captain, it boils down to four fundamental pillars: leading by example, uniting people, problem-solving, and selfless service. These pillars are like the four corners of a sturdy structure, and each one plays a crucial role in constructing effective leadership. Leading by example is the bedrock of leadership. It's about embodying the qualities you want to see in others. If you hope to inspire responsibility, hard work, and respect in your peers, you must first exhibit these qualities in your own actions. It's not just about telling people what to do; it's about showing them how to do it. In my experience, whether I'm motivating my classmates to excel in academics or encouraging my team to push their limits on the volleyball court, leading by example has proven to be the most effective way to influence others positively. Leadership is also about creating a sense of belonging. It involves bringing people together, fostering unity, and establishing a community where mutual respect prevails. In a world filled with differences, a leader's role is to ensure that everyone feels valued and included. This sense of togetherness not only boosts team spirit but also paves the way for more effective collaboration. In my dual role as team captain and student body president, I've witnessed how unity can elevate the performance of individuals and the overall success of a group. Problem-solving is another critical facet of leadership. As leaders, we must be adept at addressing challenges and finding effective solutions. Be it resolving conflicts within the team or strategizing for school events, the ability to think on your feet and stay calm under pressure is a must. Constructive criticism and the ability to make tough decisions are essential skills for maintaining team cohesiveness and steering the school community through difficulties. In my leadership roles, I've come to appreciate the value of problem-solving as a means to keep things on track and move forward. However, the essence of leadership transcends these aspects; it is primarily about selfless service. Leadership is not about acquiring power for personal gain but utilizing that power to enhance the lives of those you lead. Whether it's organizing school initiatives or working on projects that benefit the whole community, a leader's actions should be driven by the intention to serve and uplift others. As student body president, I've had the privilege of working on projects that have made a positive impact on our school community, reinforcing my belief in the importance of selfless leadership. In summary, leadership is a multifaceted concept that transcends age, gender, or background. I have come to understand that true leadership involves leading by example, unifying people, problem-solving, and selfless service. These principles have the potential to bring about positive change not only in our immediate surroundings but also in the world at large. Leadership is a commitment to continuous personal growth and a dedication to making the world a better place, one step at a time. In my journey, I aim to uphold these principles and strive to be a leader who inspires and uplifts those around me.

This past year I read the book Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki. For this essay to make sense you must know that I was extremely anxious about money and finances almost all year. I knew finances were important, but after reading this book, while also listening to other teen financial literacy podcasts, I felt the overwhelming urge to take control of my personal finances. It is important to me to keep track of my money as a teen because I have a big life in front of me. In the next few years, I will be going to an expensive college, paying to live out of my parent's house, and paying for car expenses, food expenses, and all of the other young adult expenses. I have realized I don't want to be afraid of these expenses, and I don't want money to hold me back from living my dreams. I have taken immediate action after reading Rich Dad Poor Dad. Recently I sat down with my dad and tried to understand the stock market, although I am new and don't understand fully I decided to put about half of my money into the stock market, I follow it regularly, even though I plan to keep this money in the stock market as a long term investment. Yesterday, in my finances notebook, I wrote down my financial goals for 2023 and how I would achieve them. My goal for this year is to make $5,000, although that might not seem like much to you, but for my life as an international athlete, while taking 3 college courses that is a lofty goal, but I am so determined to meet my goal. I started by writing my plan for January, if I make 14$ a day, 96$ a week, and 416$ a month I can obtain my goal. So I created a calendar that tracks my earning and spending habits. I will continue to use this method to track my finances throughout the year and I am going to work hard this year to keep my grades up and excel in my sport, while also pursuing jobs and ways I can make money. After Rich Dad Poor Dad, I have been inspired to simply keep learning. I started reading Think and Grow Rich, and I bought a book called Grow Your Money so I can learn more about investing and how to be financially literate. I feel excited to learn about money, and how to use it to have a life full of opportunities to help others, but also so that I can live a life without being "stuck in the rat race" as Robert T. Kiyosaki would say. This journey of learning about money has taught me so much, and I no longer have to be anxious about money.

A song that is catchy but has a deeper meaning to me is "Good Old Days" by Macklemore and Kesha. Yes, at first it seems like a casual pop song that you'd hear on the radio, but this song means a lot to me. I have a tendency to try and rush through life. I often can't live in the moment, simply because I am overly excited for the next milestone, like your sweet 16, next getting your license, then choosing a college, and all of the other fun milestones of becoming an adult. Throughout life, I have looked and worried about the future rather than enjoying the joy-filled moments that my teen years have been. "I wish somebody would have told me, babe Someday, these will be the good old days ............ Someday soon, your whole life's gonna change You'll miss the magic of these good old days" Listening to this song almost makes me sad that I haven't been able to truly enjoy some of the best moments, and years of my life. But I can't change the past, I can only change the future. I have roughly a year before I start my "adult life" and this song will consistently remind me to enjoy my season of life right where I'm at. It is teaching me to be present. The future will come soon enough, but on this day, I can enjoy what I will later call my "Good Old Days."

I just finished Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki about a week ago. I knew finances were important, but after reading this book, while also listening to other teen financial literacy podcasts, I felt the overwhelming urge to take control of my personal finances. It is important to me to keep track of my money as a teen because I have a big life in front of me. In the next few years, I will be going to an expensive college, paying to live out of my parent's house, paying for car expenses, food expenses, and all of the other young adult expenses. I have realized I don't want to be afraid of these expenses, and I don't want money to hold me back from living my dreams. I have taken immediate action after reading Rich Dad Poor Dad. Recently I sat down with my dad and tried to understand the stock market, although I am new and don't understand fully I decided to put about half of my money into the stock market, I follow it regularly, even though I plan to keep this money in the stock market as a long term investment. Yesterday, in my finances notebook, I wrote down my financial goals for 2023 and how I would achieve them. My goal for this year is to make $5,000, although that might not seem like much to you, but for my life as an international athlete, while taking 3 college courses that is a lofty goal, but I am so determined to meet my goal. I started by writing my plan for January, if I make 14$ a day, 96$ a week, and 416$ a month I can obtain my goal. So I created a calendar that tracks my earning and spending habits. I will continue to use this method to track my finances throughout the year and I am going to work hard this year to keep my grades up, and excel in my sport, while also pursuing jobs and ways I can make money. After Rich Dad Poor Dad, I have been inspired to simply keep learning. I started reading Think and Grow Rich, and I bought a book called Grow Your Money so I can learn more about investing and how to be financially literate. I feel excited to learn about money, and how to use it to have a life full of opportunities to help others, but also so that I can live a life without being "stuck in the rat race" as Robert T. Kiyosaki would say. I know that money isn't the biggest part of life, and that I shouldn't be obsessed with money, but my overall goal is to be as financially literate as I can, and to never stop learning. By starting my financial learning journey as a teen I have so much more potential for what I can learn before I become an adult. I am nothing but excited to continue learning and reaching my goals in finances!

I love math because there is only one correct answer. It is so nice compared to all other subjects where you can have a million different hypothetical answers, but math only has one! I am the type of person that overthinks, so on something like an English essay I can sit all day worrying about if I did well or not because I am unsure if I got it "right," on the other hand I can take a math test and know right away how I did. Math lowers my overthinking. I also love math because of my teachers, over the years I have had some pretty amazing teachers but this year I have an incredible teacher that is so kind. She greets me every day when I walk in and when I ask a million questions a day she patiently answers all of them. She goes out of her way to help us feel at ease with math! Overall I know math is going to help me a lot in life and I am thankful that it taught me persistence, critical thinking, and consistency. I hope I get to continue to take math classes and understand more because I feel like you could never learn enough!

Ariel has always been my favorite. "Lilly what movie do you want to watch?" "Ariel. Mom the answer is always Ariel." She portrays bravery like no other princess, her optimistic personality is so inspiring, and let's be honest, Little Mermaid has by far the best music compared to any other Disney princess movie. She is so unique in the way that she is the only non-human princess and that shows us little girls that watched that movie over and over that it's ok to be the odd one out. Ariel has the best sidekicks! Flounder and Sebastion make the movie ten times better. You can't help but love them! Lastly, she defeated the worst Disney villain. Take a second and try and come up with a worse villain than Urcilla. You can't think of one! But Ariel takes her down and perseveres. I hope this essay leaves you thinking about dying your hair bright red, having "kiss the girl" suck in your head for the rest of the day, and being thankful that you didn't have to fight for your wonderful legs. And long live the best Disney character, Ariel.

I feel like the world is so divided. There is an extreme absence of genuine love and humility. I feel like the world teaches you that you need to be selfish to get the things you want in life and you don't need to be kind to others to succeed. Our world is so self-absorbed and it makes me frustrated and sad. We can be so caught up with the pimple on our forehead and worried sick about that instead of realizing that our best friend is seriously struggling with the ability to keep living. There isn't a one size fits all solution for this issue, but we can make a small difference. If you and I decide that we are going to put humility first and treat others with kindness, uplifting words, and actions, we will make a difference in others' lives. You might have heard the cliche "kindness is contagious" which is so true, instead of leaving the cash register without saying a word, you could say "I hope you have a great rest of your day!" with a smile on your face. You never know the effect you could have on that person. One thing is certain, you will positively impact their life. Think about that for a second, you have the ability to impact thousands or millions of people's lives for the better. You have more power than you know, let's make a difference, together let's put others before ourselves and change the world, even if it's one person we can make a difference. Let us unite the world with love, don't underestimate your power. Go out of your way to make sure there isn't an absence of love in your life. You can make a difference.

My main goal for the future might seem so simple but it is so much bigger in my life. I want to have a happy family. I don't want to get divorced, I will carefully choose a partner and make a commitment to them, I will not get divorced. I want to be a loving mother to my kids. Thinking about it brings tears to my eyes, I want to treat them with love and I want to support them in all that they do in life. I want to raise them to be strong in their faith and for them to live their life for the Lord. Having a healthy relationship with my future kids is important to me because I didn't receive it as a kid. Every family member of my family is divorced. I don't have a great relationship with my parents and I can see how it affects my daily life, and how it will continue to affect me later in life. My goal is to be the change I wish I had in my family. I want to break the chain of divorce and tampered damaged relationships. I plan to achieve success by working on myself now. I am years away from marriage and having kids but right now I can take steps to better myself so I will be the person I want to be in the future. I am currently taking a family living class and I am taking everything I am learning and putting it into practice. I listen to podcasts about the dynamic of happy marriages and families, and I research this topic constantly. I also hope to become a marriage and family counselor, I am passionate about reaching my goal and finding every way I can pursue it!

Being empathetic is one of my biggest qualities, I have a great quality of putting myself in others' shoes. The one simple way I put empathy into my daily life is to show love to people, whether they love me back or not. I have a lot of family relationships that are hard but if I show love to them no matter the circumstances I am able to keep peace and show my empathy. Since I always show love people feel comfortable talking to me about problems or upsetting things in others' lives, I am quite often known as the 'therapist' of my friend group. If someone needs to talk they will call or ask me for advice, whenever an opportunity for me to be empathetic comes along I pursue my ability to be humble. I think a true characteristic of empathy is the ability to listen to others without bringing up yourself and your personal problems. That is defitely something I am striving to be better at when I have the oppertunity to be empathetic. Listen to others, help them carry their burden, our world would be a better place if everyone practiced empathy.

My best skill is my empathy, I have an intense quality of caring for others. I can easily put myself in someone's shoes and feel how they feel. It is very helpful and effective with all my friends and family so I can help resolve issues but also just be someone for others to be able to trust and simply just talk to. Sometimes I can't control how empathetic I get, if someone is going through something I will take it all of myself and make it my responsibility to fix the situation. That gets to be a very heavy load to carry all of the time, especially with my own problems to fix. A lot of the time I put others' problems over mine and I am working on that as well. Empathy is a very important skill to have, if every human on the planet was able to express empathy the world would be a better place. I am thankful that I was blessed with the ability to be empathetic. I will continue to work on my skill of empathy and use it to better the world.

I stay true to myself by not backing down in front of others about my beliefs and morals. I am a Christian and I am proud of that, in a public high school I am made fun of and treated very differently in many different ways. I didn't know I would struggle with this much diversity but I do. At first, I was ashamed of my beliefs, I wanted to hide my personality and not be strong in who I am, but after a short time, I realized I have no reason to hide or be ashamed. I am a child of God and that is the biggest gift anyone can receive, and I should be jumping up and down every second of the day in happiness that I am saved and that God loves me. Now I don't back down from my beliefs no matter the consequences. Another thing I struggles with was that I was stereotyped to an extreme. When you hear the word "Christian" do you already have a set opinion on me? I do not fit that stereotype and I am proud of that, and I don't feel ashamed that I don't fit that mold. Although the majority of my peers will continue to believe that I am an exact replica of this stereotype I will not let that affect me and stay strong in everything I believe, and I will continue to research and be educated about what I believe. If you are not true to yourself nothing in your life will be authentic, we as humans were meant to live an authentic life, I encourage everyone to stop living to please others but to live true to you for what you believe in.

A simple pleasure in my life is my morning routine! I like having a lot of time in the morning. I wake up earlier than I need to so I don't need to rush to get out the door. The hardest part is to get out of bed, once that is done I feel happy and refreshed. I have time to read my Bible, make a fun outfit, and do something new with my hair! Then I make coffee and breakfast while I listen to a podcast, which is a very crucial step in my day, starting the start of my day with encouraging words in my ears starts off my mind with positivity for the day. That is something I would recommend to everyone, find a podcast you like that will make a positive impact on your life, and start every day off with hearing those words. By the time I'm at school I've had a whole positive routine that guarantees a good start to my day while some people just rolled out of bed. If you want to improve your life so something as simple as creating a morning routine!