I realize that questioning your purpose is a part of life. But it breaks my heart to see so many teenagers and young adults, or really anybody for that matter, truly believe that they mean nothing—that they are nothing. One thing I’ve really begun to notice is how much light we lose from the time we’re very young, to the time we’re in highschool, to the time we’re elderly. Something in us just goes out. That spark dies.

But I don’t believe that. I don’t even believe it when I say it. How can a piece of ourselves just simply vanish? It doesn’t make sense.

I don’t think it’s gone. I think it’s just lost.

Remember those days as a kid growing up? And I’m not talking about the happy-go-lucky, hopscotch, high-fiving kind of days, nor am I talking about the sunny, swingset, sugary sweets kinds of days. I’m talking about those days where you truly felt alive. Those days where you had this empowering feeling of happiness and those days where you could honest to God look in the mirror and tell yourself, “I am living a life that I love.”

I don’t know about you, but I am willing to do anything to feel that hopeful and that invincible again. Even if it’s just for one day.

I think one of the biggest problems we all have as people is that we don’t know how to be equal. We don’t look at someone above us and strive to raise ourselves to that level. We strive to drag them down to ours. It’s like...human nature to compete. And that frustrates me. The question always seems to be, “What will everyone else say/think?” Not, “What do I think/want?”

And I think that’s a big reason why we see that shift in ourselves and our attitudes. We lose ourselves in everybody else. We don’t ever do what makes us happy, so we never feel happy. But who cares what anybody else has to say about it? Who cares what anybody else’s opinion is? You do what makes you feel fulfilled and whole and complete until you are fulfilled and whole and complete. And one day, you’ll wake up, and you’ll see that their words don’t mean anything. They never did. They never will.

And I hate that we as humans are so capable of tearing one another down. I hate that we have so much power and we use it in such a negative way. I hate that we learn so much from the hard times and so little from the good ones.

I just want people to remember these things when they feel sick to the stomach about life. Just because you lost something at the bottom of your bag, doesn’t mean it’s not there anymore. We all have a purpose. You just have to find it again. You may have to find it many times again.

But you are not nothing. You never were, and you never will be.