HowMyOpimismWillHelpMePushOnToGreater...

How My Optimism Will Help Me Press on to Greater Achievements of the Future

By: Haley K. Williams

         Has anyone heard such a question before? This question is so hard to answer. I don’t even know what the question as a whole means. I looked to my former English teacher for help, and yet, still, this question boggled my mind.

I find that Optimism is the positive attitude that you have during any situation, at any time of your life. This didn’t quite help me out much. That is when I turned to one of my intelligent friends and asked her what she thought this question was asking of me. She made it simple to understand, telling me the obvious. You can’t become successful if you think negative all the time. But however, if you think positive everyday, break the bad habit of negative thinking, you have the ability to see the positivity in everything, and push yourself on, towards a better future.

         I found myself traveling back in time through each and every memory I could possibly have in my short seventeen years. I realize that I have been fighting every day of my life, for things that were important to me, for people who were worth so much in this world. I also realize that I have been selfish, greedy in fact, begging for the things and the people that I didn’t really require in my life, I wanted them, but I didn’t need them. 

         What is the next thing I do? Well, I guess we all probably know the answer. I analyzed my life, my personality, and who this girl is.  Throughout my life, I’ve been abandoned, adopted, sexually abused, and so on and so forth. As I look back, I realize that, everything that happened in my life, all the bad things, are not all my fault. I did act upon the sexual assaults. I did act upon all the bad things that I could. But, the results, ended horribly.  The family who sexually abused me, they’re still out there, right now, getting away with what they did to me. The mother that abandoned me, she’s dead, gone, forever. The lady, who adopted me, turns out to be my biological aunt. I did what I could, and yet, like I said, the results aren’t pretty.

         I assume you realize the pain I went through. I lost my mom when I was two, adopted by my aunt when I was three, ignored by my family ever since. I had no one to look to when my aunt’s best friend’s family molested me, because my aunt didn’t believe me. Of course I couldn’t look to my siblings; they weren’t there for me, at all. I didn’t have any friends. I had no support, I was stuck, and I ended up as I am today. I still have boiling anger for my past, for my family; in fact, I confess that I don’t want anything to do with them anymore. I mean, why would I? After all they put me through; I don’t think anyone would blame me.

         I believe that I need to put my family behind me, and look forward, into the future. Who do I want to be? What do I want to do? How do I see my future? Well, I’m going to be honest with you guys right now. I don’t see my future. I don’t have a plan. People tell me that I need to develop a plan, create my future. And you know what I say? No, I don’t need a plan; I don’t need to create my future. I think my future is perfect without a plan. Because, if I plan, if I map out everything, there is a 50/50 chance that my actions will not follow through. Nothing ever turns out to be what you want it to be. I’m just going to let my life turn out to be whatever it turns out to be.

         As I told my friend Chey-Anne what I thought about how life should be, she agreed with me. She told me that I was right, because without a plan for the future, you could go, day by day, enjoying life. Life’s not about the past, and its not about the future, it’s about today. Life is about living in the moment, not worrying about the future, and not obsessing over the past. 

         To be honest, I have enjoyed this project. I have learned so much from my past, and my present.  Writing this was a struggle for me, a big time panic attack for me. But, overall, I learned about myself, I found out who I really am. I am a believer, a dreamer, a fighter. I am who I am meant to be.  I am going to use my optimism to push myself on to the greater achievements of the future.