If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got.

Anonymous quote often associated with
Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, and Mark Twain

I stand at the top of the giant slide that diverges into three slides and feel the wind blow in my face and the sweat from the long bike ride begin to dry. My friend and I have ridden our bikes past this playground all summer but we have never stopped to try the slides until today. I am moving towards the middle or the right slide and I realize that my friend is doing the same thing. Which path should I take? During all the time I have passed this park, I don’t remember seeing anyone riding the left slide. I quickly change my mind. She goes down the right slide and I go down the left slide. As I speed down the slick surface, every millimeter of space that I pass, I establish a bond with the left slide. I ride the left slide again. And again. Strengthening the connection with me and the path that no one else takes.

Our choices shape who we are-- whether it’s clothes, a career, or even your college, and if we allow others to choose for us, we are allowing others to dictate who we are. This is what makes teen years possibly the most difficult time of our lives so far. We are aware that this is around the time when our futures are being decided. Yet, as important as those decisions are, it is all too easy to let others influence our decisions, like our peers and parents. Parents keep pressurizing us to do things that we don’t want to do. They may be forcing teens to wear clothes they don’t want to wear, play instruments they don’t want to play, or most of all, become someone they don’t want to be. Instead of taking college courses and extra academic classes, we should be spending our time discovering our passions.

I wasn’t always the type of person who just grabs something out of the closet and who doesn’t care about what’s in fashion. But I am now. I usually wear an active shirt and a pair of shorts while a lot of girls at school are wearing the latest fashion. Activewear is very comfortable for me, so I wear it a lot. It took a while for me to get used to being different. I started to become different from others when I realized that the paths that others took always ended with the same result. I wanted to be the one who tried something new. At first, I was a little reluctant to wear comfortable clothes because everyone else seemed to be wearing their clothes with an eye for what others might think. Nowadays, I am less hesitant to make that different choice because I know that I will get an unexpected or distinct result. The benefits of making this choice are that people get used to my personality and character, so they don’t really care that I don’t wear fashionable clothes. This has been an excellent choice in my life because it added some ingredients to developing my personality.

My approach to school is different, too. One day in math class, my math teacher asked us whether or not we wanted a quiz. She said that some people didn’t want to take the quiz because they didn’t want to study and she said that others wanted to take the quiz to raise their grade in the class. I definitely didn’t want to study for a quiz. I was surprised at how many people wanted to take the quiz to raise their grade. When it comes to school, I am not very worried about my grade as much as others are. Obviously I don’t want to fail school, but I don’t really get tense if my grade isn’t an A or a B. I go to school to interact with my friends and learn something new everyday. I don’t go there to get college credits for good grades or to do well on assignments. This approach has helped me as a person because I tend to deal with hard situations much better than I thought I could.

Every single time I stop at that park, I ride the left slide. At first, I was forcing myself to be different, but with practice in making unique choices, it just comes naturally. It doesn’t matter if you choose the left or the right. As the anonymous quote encourages us to do, go for what you’ve never done before! Even better, go for what no one has done before! Dare to be different and see what happens from there. Even if you fail miserably, the life lessons you learn will lead you to future success.