Follow Your Own Path by Mary

Follow Your Own Path by Mary - April 2016 Scholarship Essay

Through out my four years of high school, I was constantly filled with stress that most days brought me to tears. I tried to fill my plate with school work and any extra curricular activity that I could. Any time I was asked either to help someone with their homework or stay after school to help with whatever my Ag Advisor asked me to do, I would stop what I was doing to help that person out.
It came to my attention that the only reason I was trying to over work myself was because that's what all of my peers were doing. I felt that because I was not doing as much as they were I was not smart enough or helpful enough. I realized, at the end of my junior year, that I could not compare myself to what others were doing. Comparing myself to those around me was not helping me at all, it was only hurting me in the process of my school years.
While some of things that I did to be like my friends, such as join FFA and become a officer, I was still doing most things for them rather than myself. But it gave me the strength that I did not know I had to separate myself and do what I wanted.
For all the younger student's I would say that they need to do what makes them happy with what they are doing. Following someone else for the hope of not being left behind is something that constantly made me want to cry every night, until I learned I did not need to be like my peers. The younger students can still be the individuals that they are and not feel left out from being different from those surrounding them.