Tired, cranky, hungry: it's like every teenagers daily ritual to go through the three stages of life that are more than unpleasant to encounter. Honestly, I feel bad for my mom that she has to put up with me.

With the start of the new school year I've been trying my very best to be my very best. One of my first articles I wrote mentioned how I've been running, and even though I don't see significant gains with the running, it's a little more of a refreshing mind game that I play with myself. From the experience that I've had through running I've began to try to play mind games with myself at all times. Some may call some of my new teenage rituals a defense mechanism, but I've honestly seen more significant gains from my brain workouts than from my hill sprints every morning. A while back I did some reading on the concept of mindfulness, and besides the daily meditation, the overall concept is to focus on one thing at a time. This combined with working out this summer is what I've now learned is the idea of mind over matter.
I've been familiar with the phrase but for some reason it honestly made no sense or had any relevance to me until I started to become keen in its practices. While running even when I'm tired I tell myself that I'm not, so I keep going. In school I remind myself that I got enough sleep, when I think someone's going to put me in a bad mood, I think of a way to make it better. In classes I focus only on the class around me and what is happening in it. I try not to let my mind wonder in situations where I can easily be stressed, but if I am presented with a thought that's not quite up to par, I take it in with no negative or positive emotion. I just let it be.
Although it may sound like I really do have a practiced art, I'm still in the very beginnings of this realization. I'm trying my best to take every day one step at a time, and I'm constantly reminding myself that I am better than I was yesterday, because it's very true. We are all a day wiser and older. We know so much more and we can learn from experiences. I see so many people my age stressing over the technicalities of life, but I can't help but think that I tend to look at the big picture, and know that as long as I can enjoy and not stress over trivial things, then life is going to end up how I want it.
Putting your mind over matter is a guarantee that you will be happy. It's a guarantee that you can control you life. You can't control everyone around you but you do have a say on how you react to it. There are days when I can't seem to get my head out of the water just to breathe because I'm so caught up in mess of tasks I need to complete or negative emotions, but those are the days that I am thankful for because those are the days that I know i am better. When I know I'm in a bad mood it's just a reminder that I'm usually in a good one.

I used to get a lot of crap from my friends about how I was always unhappy or at least looked to be so, and if that's what they think, then I'm learning to be okay with it, because I know in my mind I am content. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those girls with a smile sewn onto her face, but there's a difference between looking like you're having a good time and actually having one. I'm not putting up a facade anymore, and it's nice to know that I have the control to do that.