Sometimes things are as simple as they seem. Life is very hard, but hard times make strong men, and strong men make easy times. Throughout your highschool years you will learn many life lessons that will help you throughout your future years and soon to be final year of highschool. Coming into freshman year you are scared and nervous, you have never been in a new place and new things scare you. Like your nervous antics with new people you will learn to cope with this stress and anxiety with your friends. Your friends become the main reason for releasing your stress about everything. You soon realize that you have a dependency on your friends and the feeling of not being alone and by yourself on things. The first month of highschool is very scary but you start to get the hang of it, the second month is fun and you enjoy your time. Then one of the worst months of your life happens. It's the start of something you will dred and hate for the next years of your life, wrestling season starts.  Everything about this sport you will hate and obsessive thoughts of being done over with. You create this reality that no fun comes out of it and it's not for you. But in reality you grinded it out and deserved what you worked for, as a freshman being 2nd team all conference was a success in your eyes.  After the season you look back and realize it's really not that bad, yes it's hard but it changed you. The rest of your freshman year you're different from when you started. You will stop caring about what people think and learn to let go of those stresses in your life. Your growth mindset over those hard few months did change you, creating an independent you man who sees nothing more than himself and sees no worries about what others think of him. Finishing through the summer of your freshman year you make one of the biggest jumps in your mindset, you mature completely and become someone others look up to. Learning from your brother and seeing how he lived his life, you create an image of him you want to become. Take his advice, don't ignore it because he lived what you are going through. This advice he gives you will change your perspective on everything. The ones who talk about you behind your back are the ones who envy what you have. Just a few words changed your perspective. You need to take these words and use them for their purpose. But you may have the mindset but you don't have the character. Two things you need Brady will encourage you to find, a grinding mindset and an independent character. Your patience, worth, kindness, and respect for others will be tested. You start with your respect and kindness, your sophomore year you are heavily tested on these things. Being the oldest at south campus you have power over others is your starting mindset, but its not putting others down to gain power. It's the wisdom and advice you show to influence others. In all your classes you learn the gift of how to lead and influence others.  This gift is not obtained by everything; it's something you learn but never master. Leading is a gift for good or bad. There will be a time over this year you need to make a choice to lead some to good or lead others to be bad. How you lead will change who you are known as forever. Good or bad you make your decision, you will choose wrong and regret this decision. For the next 3 months you are thrown around and treated terribly, it affects you for years to come but you get over this treatment through your loved ones. But don't worry this is the year you will meet one of your closest friends. You pick you back up on your feet and put you back to how you were. The wrestling season this year is worse than the previous year. You start having panic attacks and mental breakdowns. You need to thank a certain someone who helped you overcome the fears that made you weak. This person becomes an anchor for you and makes you strong mentally. Once the season is done you indulge in your freedom and with your friends. You surround yourself with the ones who build you up, not break you down. You will very quickly know how your friends' actions will affect you, so you build a group of friends who have the same goals and morals as you. These people are the same people who have been with you since 7th grade and you stay with them through highschool, they will become your family. Like every family you will fight and have some ups and downs. But at the end of the day these people are your people. Summer going into your junior year you will be faced with the biggest responsibility yet. You will get your first job. This job is not like most people's first job. Your work will work for an organization that connects children with special needs to nature and God. This will be your biggest eye opening yet. Working in the summer heat all summer will become the hardest thing for you. Work ethic is something you lack. Over this summer you learn to work for others, and seeing those get joy from your work is more rewarding than any amount of money. This mindset of working for the joy of others is truly special. Two other of your closest friends work with you and they will tempt you to do the bare minimum and mess around, but you will not cave in and go beyond the minimum and blow the mind of your bosses. You are rewarded with trust, your bosses will give you so much respect and trust. You value this trust and will please them with any task, no matter how hard you will do it with no complaining and with ease. You will soon learn to take your mind off of the clock and focus on how to get your done right, not rushed. Physically you never lack in strength, but mentally is something you need to improve on. Working over the summer on this amazing opportunity of rewarding others joy boosts your strength. The joy you give others is worth more than getting a small pleasure for yourself. You soon will become a servant in leadership and serve the ones who improve you as a person. Your grades in your junior year will show how your work ethic has improved. Many life lessons you will learn in just two years of high school, do not care what others think of you, don't let people bring you down instead surround yourself with those who improve you, lead with your heart and not through temptations, respect is earned through work ethic not power. And finally hard times create strong men.