Act first, think later. Everything from school to family to friends to hormones hitting all at once, left and right. Now add a pandemic and eight hours of mandatory screen time. That is me currently. A 16-year-old public high school student, missing her childhood and becoming more confused about life as each second passes. I can confidently speak for my population when I say that with increasing expectations and no way to leave home, mixed in with a mandatory 8 hours in front of a screen and a widespread virus, teens everywhere are struggling. I, and other students, have so much to relieve off our chest. In this day and age, it is so complicated trying to navigate adolescence. I feel like what aggravates us, teens, most is that parents and other adults think they "get us" or understand what it is like to be a teen now, but *ahem* they are most definitely wrong. I want to create something that represents my take on adolescence while also interacting with other teens across the United States. What is this something you may ask? It is a podcast. Yes, those audio segments where you hear people ranting. I want to create a podcast that voices how teens everywhere feel about themselves, their future, and their surroundings. The podcast to be a safe and engaging space for teenagers to let their guard down and let stress off their minds, even if it is just for a few minutes. Typically, podcasts have a host that talks about a topic for the whole segment, maybe a guest brought on now and then. I plan to format my podcast in a unique way that engages students from different parts of the country. What I want to do, besides being the host, is ask teens to choose topics they want to talk about and invite a different teen on the podcast each time. I will use a forum, such as Google Forms or Discord, to ask teens what topics they would like to discuss that week. This way, teens have a direct say in what they are listening to. I will also create a separate forum to choose a teen every week that is willing to talk with me and express their opinions or experiences or topic at hand. I want this podcast to represent teens of all demographics in one central location. Being a firm believer that we live in a small world, I want it to be something we can all connect to in at least one way. Through this creation, I hope to help all types of people, not just teens. I want parents, teachers, and other adults to listen in and leave understanding teenagers a little bit better. A podcast that expands on how teenagers feel would be a way for us teens and adults to communicate. Younger children, students starting to enter their adolescent years, should listen in, as well, and prepare for some of the most confusing years of their lives. Being a teenager is all about making plenty of mistakes and hopefully learning from them. However, I think it is vital for some children to get a heads up and prepare as much as they can because the future is quite unpredictable in the world now. Who knows, we might have a zombie apocalypse happening right after the pandemic dies down. Connecting with people through experiences is one of the many things that bring us closer together as people. When we vocalize our support, we realize how small the world is and that we are all similar in one way or another. The main goal of my podcast is to spread positive messages to everyone who encounters it. Hopefully, everyone leaves feeling understood.

Arianna Huffington once said, “Failure is not the opposite of success; it is part of success.” Everybody loves success, yet not everybody accepts failure. My greatest achievement in life so far is learning how to accept my failures. It is my motivation. It makes me stouter, wiser in choosing actions that I shall take, and strive more to do better in my next steps in life. Growing up unveils me to reality. There were times that I failed being a good student, being a good daughter, and being the best version of myself. My failure made me feel that I am not smart enough, and I am not capable of doing things around me. It also made me feel that I am in a shameful situation where everybody could easily judge me base on my failures. I came to the point where I feared failure. I thought about how my life could be if I remained to be a kid without having too much pressure while taking the path to success. Until one night, my mother and I had a little conversation while driving home. I asked my mother if she ever dreamed about living in a fairy tale where everything is perfect. Without any hesitation, she answered me, “No.” Then that was the time that I was puzzled because I was expecting that she will answer me “Yes.” I asked her, “Why? Life is way easier and happier in fairy tales than living in reality.” She said that “Living in a fairy tale is like living a boring life. Our challenges and failures are what complete us. It feeds us with lessons that we can apply to ourselves and in daily life. It makes our life more interesting. Failing does not mean you should give up all the other things that you dream of. Let your failures push you to become a greater person than you are today. Let the world see that no matter how many times you failed, you can always achieve the success that you want,” she answered. That night changes the way how I define failure. Without it, we cannot have the strength and courage that we have today that keeps us going. We can achieve moral lessons through our failures. Would it not be more intriguing hearing a man's struggles to succeed rather than them having everything from the beginning? And besides, “Essence before Existence.” God has planned out everything for us before we have even existed. God will never let us face pain and challenges that he knows we cannot handle. Failure is not permanent. I perceive it as my teacher that teaches me to get right back up, keep going, and fight the obstacles that I might further face. It is part of my own story. I know that there will be more failures in my life, but I am ready because I know that my previous only made me stronger. I accepted them, learned from them, and found some of my success in life. That is the secret of every winner.