Life is full of struggles, issues, failures, mistakes, and problems. Everyone deals with this, so you are not alone. We all have things we don’t like about ourselves and we have all make mistakes. As humans we focus on all those negative things so we can fix them and strive for perfection. It would be great if we could fix all the negative things about us, but focusing on them only keeps you from living life.

In high school, I would always focus on all the countless things I did wrong everyday. I would be frustrated with myself for getting a low grade or making some stupid mistake in a class. Now, it didn’t stop me from living my life fully, but I could have had a much better time if I wasn’t worried about every little thing.

Not giving ourselves grace makes fills us with fear. The fear of failure. We, as humans, fear not being good enough, so when fear or worry sets in, it's extremely hard to stop. Fear prevents a lot of people from doing great things and keeps them from living out their purpose. But there is always hope.

My last couple years of high school were not the best, and I lost a lot of friends. I thought about this everyday for almost two years. I would ask myself what I did wrong, or how I could fix it. The answer, is that I did nothing wrong and that I couldn’t fix it.

There was never a solution to it, and if I would have figured that out sooner, I could have had a better time. I am now 7 weeks into my freshman year of college in a completely new place and I couldn’t ask for anything better. As a music major I automatically had a ton of people who would be there for me at all times, no questions asked. I also joined a dance team and one of the choirs, which gives me more people that are like a second family to me.

After seeing how caring everyone is here, I realized that there is absolutely nothing for me to worry about. There is no need to live in fear thinking that I have failed something or someone else. Starting over in a new place took so much stress off of me. We should not fear failure, because failure gives us the opportunity to grow and learn more about ourselves and others.