Fear is one of those vague abstract concepts that I don’t want to talk about and make myself sound all sappy and pretentious. But when I reflect on my past four years at Algonquin, it’s one of the more predominant emotions I can remember.

I was scared of some of the school lunches, DECA kids and Mr. McDonald. But largely, my fear just became a series of questions repeating themselves over and over again like a broken record in my brain: What if I’m not good enough? What if I’m not smart enough? What if I’m not cool enough? 

I’ve spent a lot of time in high school mulling over things I said, how I sounded, how it made me look and on and on. All that time wallowing in my own thoughts never got me anywhere and never made me better at anything. What I learned most from high school was how to be a human filter. Gradually, I learned how to separate the thoughts that would tie me down from those that would help me grow. I learned how to recognize what was worth my time and would make me a better person, what was real and what wasn’t.

Life is filled with so much more than just the day-to-day interactions we have at high school. There’s so much to start digging at, to explore, fall in love with and learn about. And those are the things that we should spend our time and energy on, because ultimately those are the things that are real: spend time with good friends, listen to music, read books, read the news, go for a walk. Stop interacting with your mind so much. 

I wish I could go back in time and tell myself to cut it out, to quit spending precious time dwelling on things that didn’t matter, to stop living in fear. I believe that to make the most out of high school and life in general is to learn to untangle yourself from the unimportant and get on with the good stuff.