Your Mission: Possible

Another school year is already starting! Notebooks are being bought, hair is being cut, and outfits are being picked. Nobody is ready to start waking up early again, but everybody must face the facts. High school, the bridge between kid and adult, has started.

High school is a great time to get involved. I’m sure that you’ve had a lot of people tell you that already, but it’s true. There are so many different, interesting things that are out there for you to try.

Plug in to your community
My high school didn’t have a whole lot of options, given that it was so small, but I went out into my community and got involved. I think many people let the excuse of going to a small school keep them from doing much of anything. Well, let me tell you, your community has plenty of opportunities that I’m sure will interest you.

Seek out a local volunteer organization and get involved with a cause you care about. Or talk to someone at a local community college and take dual credit classes and get started on your college degree while still in high school. Maybe even just go to the library and join a reading program. If school sports or band or choir are your thing, go for it. If not, know that the community has a lot to offer too.

Make a point of finding your mission
My advice to high-schoolers is to find out what your mission is. I’m sure you have had a million people ask you what you want to do when you grow up, and what you’re going to major in. You don’t need an answer to those questions. In fact, it’s better if you don’t have one specific career in mind. Instead, figure out the kind of person you want to be.

Think of what you want to represent when you are 20, 30, 40, and so on. Then work on becoming that person. If your mission, for example, is to be a strong voice against suicide within our generation, then start reading about suicide. Talk to people who have gone through depression. Start figuring out what you can do to help others who are struggling, and talk to professionals in your community who can give you a better idea on how to help.

Then, when it comes time to make major decisions about your own life, they will go in accordance with your mission. Every decision will also reflect the type of person you want to become. So when people ask what you are going to do with your life, you can say “I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I am going to become the best person I can become.”

Be thankful, and don’t wish the time away
Finally, just be grateful for where you are at. High school (as much as we don’t want to admit it) is a privilege that most of the world does not have in the way we do. You have the opportunity to take advantage of your situation and make an impact on the world. You also have the opportunity to make yourself a better person and make a lot of money because of your hard work.

Don’t just wish the day away, and then the week, and then the year, in the hopes that the future will be better and you will be better in the future. You will waste extremely valuable time that you have been afforded now.

Just keep in mind that you are just as capable now to do things as you will be down the road, and circumstances are just as hard. We are not the future of this country. We are this country, and we need to represent it well.