I watched "Nerve" the day after it came out in theaters in hopes of a little adrenaline, thrill and excitement. My hopes were fulfilled. The movie’s main character, Vee, was an interesting character in the sense that she reminded me of myself. In the beginning, you can tell that she was afraid of rejection not just from the guy she liked but from her mother. The guy she liked is irrelevant because he ended up being a jerk anyway. Her mother, on the other hand, wanted Vee to go to college locally, while Vee wanted to go to school across the country. The problem is that she was too scared to tell her mom that she wanted to move away. She wanted to do things but was just too afraid to take the first step. Then Vee starts playing "Nerve" as a way to prove herself to her friend that she does take -- risks and pretty serious ones, too. As the movie escalates, the dares get more and more risky. In the conclusion, she ended up with something better than she imagined, finding a great guy and going to her dream school.

The point I’m trying to get at here is that we tend to stay in our comfort zones, which isn’t completely bad, but they do keep us confined within the barriers. Nobody wants to go against what their parents say because they supposedly know what’s best for us. Honestly, parents don’t want their children to run off and start their lives in this crazy world. Whether they like it or not, one day it will happen. That’s why I started to see myself as Vee, as she’s afraid of taking risks because of fear of failure. I am the same way. When I was applying to colleges, I applied to one out-of-state school in the hopes of getting the full college experience, but guess what? I was accepted into the school in New York City, but I didn’t go. The last two schools that I had to choose from were a school an hour away from home by car where I would have to dorm and a commuter school 45 minutes by public transportation. The only difference was that one school offered me loans in order to get a full ride, while the other school had no loans. At first, my decision was the school one hour away with dorms and loans, but then the decision changed because of my parents. I understand their decision due to financial reasons, but what I really wanted was to get away from home for a while and to experience living on my own.

I’ve been letting myself be held hostage for too long; I feel like I have no control over my life 99 percent of the time, which is very sad to me. I’m literally tired of being told what to do, how to do something, when to do something, and so on. It’s about time I take the handle and leave it on my side. I’ve been hesitant to apply to jobs because of lack of confidence in myself and hesitant to travel the world because I’m not ready. The only reason I feel like this is because my parents have been telling me how to run my life for the past 21 years, and the truth is that I don’t really know anything else. I feel like if I had more freedom to express myself fully or experience things on my own, I wouldn’t feel so stuck. I had a little taste of freedom when I went on my service trip to Detroit, but once I came back I felt restricted again. Home is great for a little while, but there’s so much to do out in the world that I can’t let four walls keep me captive.

I should stop letting myself being told how to run my life and start doing what I want. I should apply for that competitive job and actually believe in myself because I’m capable of whatever I put my mind to. I should buy that plane ticket and travel the world, because I’ll never know when I’m ready until I’m there. I should get that tattoo that I want regardless of whether my parents like it or not. I should get my own place even if it’s small because it’s a start on the journey of living on my own. I should start taking risks and stop taking commands because I am the boss of my life. I can’t let that invisible wall keep me confined from doing what I really want to do even if it means moving across the country from my parents. I need to find out who I really am and express that person. Taking risks can lead to finding myself or much more, but I’ll never know until I try.