Everyone has their own idea of life. Don’t let your idea be the same as someone else; that’s called being cliche. Life shouldn’t be cliche.

Ask yourself what is truly important to you, not someone else, and have the will-power to shape your life around that answer. Everyone must eventually follow their own path in life, not that of a peer. 

Don’t worry about your own future based off of the success of your peers. Keep focused on your own path, whatever that may be. If you don’t yet know where you’re going, that’s okay too. Everyone develops at their own pace.

Good grades are important, but they are not what you will take with you when high school is over. Rather it is maturity and worldliness that you will have equipped as you journey into your future.

A lot of what you learn in school will not come back to haunt you in your later years. An employer isn’t going to base your job aptitude off of whether or not you’ve memorized the Periodic Table of the Elements. They will, however, evaluate your work ethic, your attitude, your ability to work with a team and your initiative, among other questions of maturity.

So if you work hard at something and aren’t the best at it, no problem. Just appreciate your education and keep focused on your path, and yours alone. Take advice and learn from your failures.

If you challenge yourself, failure will sometimes be inevitable. But it’s what you take with you into your later life that matters. If high school seemed to be filled with failures, remember each one of them so that when, down the line, a similar situation arises, you know what to do.

If all else fails, set aside time to think. Simply thinking, asking yourself questions, and coming up with ideas can go a long way. Think about who you are, and who you want to become. Accept that life doesn’t always cooperate with you, and think then how you can instead cooperate with life.

For truly, there are other forces at work, besides the obstacles that seem impossible to be overcome. If you don’t allow the will of these obstacles to defeat you, the greater forces will conspire together for eventual fruition.

If you choose to travel along the path of another, however, you’ll fall behind them and find yourself walking backwards; for indeed, they know the path far better than you.

But if you trust your own path, you just might run into someone else along the way: yourself.

It’s not easy to get out the door, but once you do, you’ll realize the world is far more grand than says the view from out your window.

Perhaps there you will find your own idea of life, where the maturity which you have gained will not wither, and where the darkness which stands before you becomes not a lurking shadow but a lasting light.