Sorry

          Like baking a cake, life has its own recipe. There are many ingredients and steps you must take in order to achieve greatness. Trust is the first ingredient required for any relationship. This includes a relationship with yourself. Many people overlook this factor but without having trust in yourself, you are preventing yourself from big things and missing out on several opportunities. At the age of 12 I began to lack trust; in my friends, in my family, and most devastatingly, myself. This was the age I truly began facing real life challenges and as I started to lose friends, I had no one to turn to. Going through these obstacles on my own grew detrimental to my health. From this point on, I began to travel downhill, deep into my own despair. But what I did not yet know was the inner strength I had to pull myself out of this hole.

    Finding I did not fit in with any specific group, I was forced early on to find comfort and independence within myself. Independence, self-reliance, and self-love all comes with time, even to this day I am a work in progress but with time and persistence I have reached a level I never would have imagined. From the days of my young, middle school life, not having trust myself created this being that at 12 years old was already so filled with sadness and anger. I was the cause of my own downfall, digging my own grave so deep that my future self would have to fight an uphill battle just to get me back to the surface. The battle was hard, my head was constantly filled with the question “why?”. I wonder why I went through any of the things that I was forced to experience and the worst part was why did I not have any friends I could talk to about what I felt. Half my head was flooded with doubt of my own persona and the other flooded with me trying to reassure myself that I was not the problem. A division in my own mind, before an age that I could even comprehend any of this debate. My young self grew depressed, lacked self-love, and self trust was the last thing on my mind. My biggest mistake was allowing myself to reach this state. Life has its ups and downs in which we cannot control; however, some things are up to us to change. I have the power to change the direction of my path and this realization altered a lot for me.

    Growing this mindset and knowing that my first step in achieving growth begins with myself, I began to put in the effort needed. My goal was happiness, peace, and self-love; which proved the most difficult one to achieve. I knew where I was headed and that it was in my hands to achieve my goals, but this did not mean that reaching them was not going to be difficult. Truthfully, you can know what you need to do and still struggle and face obstacles, this was the case for me. For a while I would continuously try to be better and end up giving up when it got hard. This was a barrier I was forced to overcome when I realized it was blocking my path towards reaching my goals. Being a member of Latinos In Action for four years, I’ve come to learn a lot about myself, what it means to be my true self, and what it means to be a leader. Latinos In Action has inspired me to be my best because goodness in the world starts with a chain reaction; with just one good deed can produce many more. With this newfound mindset, I knew I needed to start putting genuine trust in myself. Having trust in myself altered my persona and helped me to realize my true potential. I soon grew aware of what I was capable of, who I am, and who I could be. I am talented, skillful, smart, hard-working, and driven, and this all began with the trust I have in myself. I would say that putting trust in myself was watering the seeds that I already had deep inside me, enabling them to flourish into the beautiful flowers, which is now my true self. With the confidence I had within myself, came flowing in self love and pave the way for me to reach true happiness which I had struggled with for the past few years of my life. As I am now a senior, seeing the progress I have made from the beginning high school years to now provides a rewarding feeling as I can see my own accomplishment. I can honestly and wholeheartedly say that after achieving trust within myself, I was able to dig myself out of that hole and I am now in the best position of life that I have been in over five years.