The best compliment I have ever received

I was speaking to a friend recently. Nothing special, just a mundane conversation about studying and exams and out of nowhere this is what she says:

“One day, I’m gonna tell my kids about you and tell them they should aspire to be like you”

I was taken so off guard because this was not like any compliment I had ever received before. Mind you, we are both seventeen. It is incredibly rare for us to think about anyone with such depth. It wasn’t a shallow compliment like the ones we hear on a day to day basis.

Her words were so personal and wasting no time, I started to tear up. You might think I’m being dramatic but let me just give you a little backstory that will explain why this meant so much to me.

For years, I have been working tirelessly to become the best version of myself. To become a motivated, passionate and hard-working person. To become an empathetic, compassionate, understanding and charitable person. To be mature and avoid situations that involve gossip and slander. However, in my mind I was failing. No matter how much I tried, I could never bring myself to portray that perfect image of myself except to one or two extremely close people who knew exactly who I was on the inside.

This was a period of self doubt and of low self esteem. There was no way that I could become this person if I had no confidence as confidence is one of the main characteristics of this person I was trying so hard to be. It takes a great deal of confidence to be completely true to yourself.

In our society, it is terribly easy to get caught up in trying to fit in; but why do we need a world where everyone is the same? People should be aspiring to stand out. Not by doing crazy things like dangerous online challenges (tide pod challenge I’m looking at you) but by being yourself. You hear it time and time again but it really is that simple.

And that is why I will remember my friend’s compliment forever. It immediately filled me with heaps of confidence and truly made me feel special. It was the beginning of my journey to get back to being self-loving, allowing me to start working on being that person I aspire to be. A person who does my own thing and isn’t afraid to be different.

So go out this week and find someone to give a truly personal compliment. Show them how much you admire them. And let me know what the best compliment YOU have ever received is. 

A day in the life of a student in the 21st century

From grades, to financial struggles, to trying to fit in, it is no secret that through history, students have been facing several challenges; but what specific hardships do students nowadays face?

We constantly see old people thinking they know how we feel and publishing article after article about how to manage stress by “drinking more water” or “making a timetable”. While these things may be of some benefit, it is extremely hard for other generations to understand the constant anxiety that students nowadays face. So what better person to write this article than a current student that is constantly facing these hardships?

I’m going to skip the statistics and studies as there is already enough of that all over the internet. Let me try to give you a taste of what it is like to be a real life student in the 21st century.

Disclaimer: I know this doesn’t apply to everyone and not all students are going through depression.This is meant to be a way to show the struggles that teenagers face in their day to day lives and what these things are capable of doing to their mental health.

Your alarm wakes you up around 5:30am, it is still dark outside, only a mere few hours after you managed to fall asleep. Either because you were up all night catching up on your endless assignments, or because you just couldn’t sleep; the insomnia that you have started to experience a few years ago kicking in. Or maybe you were having a panic attack thinking about that one exam that determines the rest of your life. You could have been thinking about your “friends” that drag you into any possible drama for their own enjoyment. Or maybe the middle of the night was simply your only time to watch your favorite TV show or read your favorite book. Whatever it was, it doesn’t matter now. You have to get up and physically and mentally prepare yourself for another gloomy day.

After tiredly making yourself look semi put together, you set off on your journey to school, the closer you get to the building, the more nauseous you get. You passively walk into the miserable organization, full of robots. Robots that all look identical. You are essentially used to being one of this organization’s tools. A tool they use to give themselves a good name. To be viewed as a reputable institute. None of them could care less about you or your wellbeing. Everyone only cares about their own personal gains. For anyone looking in, all they can see is what looks like a happy place of learning with unbelievable facilities.

You crack your first smile of the day as you go sit with your friends. Or in other words, the one group of people that you can learn to tolerate for the remainder of your time at school. You sit blankly as they go on about trivial things that you can’t get yourself to care about, waiting for your first lesson to start.

You go through lesson after lesson, staring at your overly enthusiastic teacher fly through topic after topic, unable to take in any information, your brain feeling foggy. Your poor teacher is trying so hard to look for fun and innovative ways to teach you but it comes off as fake and forced. Frankly, it doesn’t work. At least, this teacher actually cares unlike your teacher for your other subject.

Now it’s time for your study period. Your friends urge you to go sit with them but you really want to find a quiet space to study. This is after all, the most important year of your life so far. However, even after finding that quiet place, sitting down and getting all your notes out, you can’t help but stare into space and feel sorry for yourself. You weren’t always like this. You actually used to be a really enthusiastic person with no trouble sitting down and doing your work. What happened to your motivation and desire to chase your dreams? Why are you suddenly so indifferent about it?

At the end of the day, you grab your things and rush out of the building. When you get home, you rush greetings to your parents but really all you want to do is get back into that bed of yours and stay there for as long as you can. Something has sucked out your urge to interact with friends and family or do any other activities. You get into your bed and stare blankly at your ceiling for hours and hours, ignoring the piles of school work you need to do.

This is my first blog post. I decided to get straight into it without introductions. Hopefully, you guys can get to know me better through my posts.

I’d love to read your comments so leave some down below.