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When I was 15, I remember using my silver laptop sitting on my soft green couch just writing my thoughts about what will happen in the next five years. I thought so much about college and the future challenges ahead of me. I even worried about death.
I went into a major depression. I stopped hanging out with my friends because I thought about I was going to lose them in the future. I looked at people and thought about different endings I didn’t want to happen so I ended friendships at that moment. “I’m sorry, but we can’t be friends anymore or associates. It’s me, not you,” I told them. I destroyed most of my greatest friendships because I worried about what might occur.
Dreaming about death was common for me. I was thinking that I would die alone or with regrets. I dreamed about dying in a hospital bed leaving all dreams and the people I loved and grew up with. So many negative thoughts ran through my head. I lost confidence in myself, and I lost my vision of myself. I didn’t see a future for myself.
Every morning I would tell myself, “You’re not going to make it to the future and be successful.” When I walked through those doors at Lanier High School, I saw my future in total darkness and pure destruction. I thought so much that I lost vision on a beautiful future.
One day, though, I was sitting on my couch thinking, and I heard this quote “Seize the day!” I started to think about it, then I went on Google and searched for that quote.
“Seize the day” simply meant to make the most out the present moment. I started to accept that we are not going to live forever.
So I understand that you want do so much in the future. But if you can just live in the moment and do your best in the present, you’ll reach a beautiful destination. I enforce that into my life now. I started to create memories, not worries. I started to think less about death because I can do so much in the present.
I gain so much from that one quote. Live in the moment! Seize the day! So don’t count days, make days count. Because forever is not promised.
Kenytta Brown, 17, is a senior at Lanier High School.
