When I was a senior in high school I heard that the person you are at 18 is the person you will be for the rest of your life. It was not intended to mean that you do not grow throughout your life but it was intended to mean that the qualities you exhibit or have when you are finishing up your teenage years will be qualities that follow you throughout the rest of your life. I was satisfied with who I was as a person when I was 18 but I also knew that there was something I wanted to change about myself.

It takes a lot of courage for someone to admit the faults they have but I knew courage was something I wanted to work on. I liked who I was but I knew I could grow from that person and become a better person in different ways. Thinking about this idea now makes me realize that the person I was when I was 18 was used as a platform for who I wanted to become as an adult.

We sometimes think about the person we were in high school or get embarrassed about the things we did. There is nothing to be embarrassed about because it led us to this point in our life. Our early parts of life are the foundation for us to be successful and change. What we did at a certain age prepared us for life when we hit adulthood.

The best example I can think of has to focus on college.

People mention how much they have grown or developed while being in college and while the maturity can be well noted it is also vital to think about the things we learned that might not be necessarily taught in a classroom. I was always great at learning things academically but it was outside the classroom that I struggled. I didn't know how to read a room, how to communicate or even how to view certain situations.

College allowed me to learn these skills but it also allowed me to grow socially.

I could talk about all the negatives I had of myself when I was in high school but I think there is only one that I want to focus on: my self-confidence. I had low self-confidence and sometimes I would just sulk around because I thought I was nothing special. Growing up allowed me to reevaluate myself and make me realize that I am something special but that I need to find the balance. I need to know that I am loved but I do not need to let that go to my head.

Don't view life as what moments keep you down but rather as how good your life is. Build from the good and you can become better. Try new things but always hold onto those qualities that made you, you.

The person we are in high school is not going to be the person we are as an adult.

That is not intended to be negative but it is meant to say that we are not finished growing. I have always viewed myself as finding ways to improve. Maybe there is something I want to do that is different or maybe I want to be more involved with the community but want to change myself should not be viewed as a bad thing. There are some things I want to do that I know will better myself and I guess it just took me to grow up to realize that while I might like myself as a whole I also want to enhance and build off the qualities I have.