Becoming taller. Getting stronger. A change in your body composition. As we transition into adolescence, these are prominent metamorphosizes we see. But do you notice the inner changes of a person? Of yourself? In the human nature of people, as we grow and develop, our naiveness begins to regress, and we see the brutality of the world. But our eyes are also opened, in a positive way, to the realities of the world. We can see the way we are changing chemically, but most of us start to pick up on slight changes in personality, maturity or morals, of not only ourselves but others, too. Whether you start owning more of your own responsibilities, see yourself connecting to your friends on a new emotional level, or even find yourself holding more pride and seriousness in what you take part in, you are going through a common process of organizing priorities and developing into a determined individual.

Independence is defined as freedom from the control, influence, support or aid of others. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean, as a person, that you need to be on your own. Simply, it means you are learning to act on your own. Every day, I see myself beginning to make decisions more and more off of solely what I want, or what I deem as right. Since we are little, we make little changes in our decisions, like starting to pick out our own clothing. But as we grow, our choices switch to things of more importance. High school is where a lot of this occurs. At one point, I found myself invested in what others thought of me. I never particularly cared about people's opinions on the little things; what I wore, music I was into, or who I talked to, but I didn’t feel comfortable being noticeably unique. As Freshman year continued, I began to see the fictitiousness of people and the things they said. “Backstabbing” became too common, and talking about people behind their backs. Sometimes, I contemplated why these things existed. But as time went on, I found myself not only the victim, but culprit as well. This is because I saw myself following the path of everyone else. Though, I sieved through my values, and began to break off from this path. This doesn’t mean everyone else stopped talking bad about others, but I secluded myself from this kind of activity. Oddly, I still found myself not breaking out from the conventional ways of highschoolers.

I had a great summer going into my sophomore year. Quite frankly, I could not have asked for a better one. I got to go on vacation with my friends and family, and spend a lot of time with a solid friend group. I even learned a lot from situations I was in, and how to make myself better from them. As the summer ended, I found myself back in school, but there was something different about this year from the start. That distasteful fictitiousness almost doubled in my peers, and this time, even in my close friends. Some of the people that I saw as my best friends started to become people that I couldn’t even recognize anymore. But, I didn’t change myself to be like them. I liked the person I was. I enjoyed being flexible through multiple friend groups, and hanging out with people who liked me for me. Unlike others, I continued to take pride in my schoolwork. Just as I do now, I worked my hardest to keep all of my grades up. I put my best efforts into studying, tests and even homework; whereas others began to give up. The people who I once saw as my best friends, chose the opinions of older kids, because they were more worried about how they saw them, than the views of their closest friends. And it’s still happening now. But from this, I’ve learned who my closest friends are, and I surround myself with them, because I am not interested in allowing any negativity to enter my life. I’ve became independent as a person through these friendship experiences. I don't allow one person to dictate my life, and I certainly do not feel obligated to act as my other friends do. I’ve learned how crucial it is for my true friends to like me for the independent and unique person I am, and will always be.

I'm only 16. I'm not fully developed, and I don't have that expectation set for myself just yet. I'll be fully developed as I grow older, and am opened to new experiences where I have the ability to gain wisdom and knowledge through them. But I keep things in mind as I see myself growing, I look at the situations I've been in, and try to shape myself as an adult through them. My goal is to perfect independence. I yearn to be self reliant, and to achieve all my goals by always striving for them. No one achieves their goals without putting in effort, and working hard. As I see others put in no effort, and get nowhere in life, I'm just more inspired to keep working hard, because I don't want to be like everyone else. "Unlike a drop of water which loses its identity when it joins the ocean, man does not lose his being in the society in which he lives. Man's life is independent. He is born not for the development of the society alone, but for the development of his self." (B.R. Ambedkar) This quote is something I've learned to live by. Because if you are truly striving to live your life to the fullest, why should someone who's trying to thwart you, or influence you off of your path, matter?
As well as learning through friendship experiences, school and family, I've learned about independence through track. Starting the winter season of track in 2014, I was the only freshman. Yes, I was scared at first, afraid that I wouldn't make companions on the team or even be good enough to keep up with the others. But I was fine. Luckily, I had a comforting and loving team who brought me in and made me part of the family. I wasn't very good my first couple of weeks. I had trouble keeping up with others at practice, and I simply did not have the drive to push myself to get better. But that soon changed. I realized that if I don't give it my all every day, how will I get better? I began pushing myself at practices, I worked out on the weekends, and kept myself in shape year round. That first season was good for me, I made it to states, but I still wasn't great. It's now my sophomore year and I have just completed my third season of track. This year, I took a risk. I moved up to longer events to test myself and my endurance. I became the third fastest six-hundred meter runner on the team, after two seniors who will no longer be there next year. I missed qualifying individually by half a second, but now I am just more determined to qualify next year. However, that's not just how the season ended. Never before have any track team been league champions, until this year. The Wilmington girls track team became the first track team in school history to be undefeated, and this to me, is a symbol of why I strive to work my hardest. The feeling I had after we won it all, cannot be put into words. And it doesn't need to be, because it means much more to me than anyone who's not on the team, because as others didn't take track seriously, or put in the effort that I did, I continued to do so and can now say I contributed to my team becoming league champions.

Although all of these situations in my life where I saw myself breaking off from conventional ways, securing my values, and remaining unique, may not seem like blatant forms of becoming an independent person, they are; Originality is independence, not rebellion; it is sincerity, not antagonism. The feeling of winning league champions, having the confidence to scoff in someone's face who is trying to act as if they are superior to me, making honor roll and high honors, and just being successful outweigh the the plight I have to achieve all of these acts. Independence is key.