Know Thyself

Part A

My life before 10^th grade was a disaster. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, didn’t know where I was going, and hadn’t a clue of how to do it. Though, by living my life the way I thought it should be, I have become a better person. Through countless mistakes, I have learned and grown to adapt to a continually changing environment.

College application deadlines are coming up fast, and understanding yourself is crucial to knowing where you want to go, what you want to study and why you want to go to college. For some, college is not the best path. Many kids find themselves stuck when they have to make enormous, life changing decisions when applying to college. The enormity of this decision weighs in with the huge financial risk it takes to go to college. If a student fails out of college, the fee impacts families in heartbreaking ways. If you know yourself, know what you want to do with your life and carry those plans out, your life will be better.
To make these decisions though, you need to understand yourself. This includes being able to make life-changing decisions based upon your beliefs, abilities, and actions. To know weather you will complete an assignment on time and plan for that time to be available is crucial to doing well in school. If you tend to slack off, you need to accommodate your other activities to fit your time demands. It works the other way too. You may understand yourself by knowing you will not complete an assignment no matter how much time you have. This knowledge is important to do well in school. Before 10^th grade, I had no idea how much concentration it took to get all my work completed on time. I would turn assignments in two or three days late because I didn’t understand my work habits. By senior year, I have found out what kind of strategies I need to effectively complete all my work.
One of my good friends does not understand himself as well as I understand myself. He struggles to find colleges that suit him and is having trouble deciding on a major. Between grueling work hours, college searches, SAT tests, sports teams, family problems and homework, he labors to find what he truly desires to do with his life, and to prioritize.
Setting goals for yourself is crucial to expanding your horizons. To keep an upward trend in school, you must learn. By making mistakes and understanding yourself, you learn how to accommodate for your beliefs, personal standards, and abilities. To set goals for yourself, you must have an extensive knowledge of yourself. If you believe in helping hungry children in Africa, you might set a goal to spread awareness by organizing a food drive. If you believe in giving aid to hungry children in Africa, but know you will never have the time or the willpower to make it happen, you might donate some money to an organization. By understanding yourself, you can create realistic and effective goals to do what you want to do.
Being able to self assess is a very important quality. If you are failing a class, you need to sit down with yourself and make changes. You need to be able to know what you need to have happen and make it happen. If you know your hour at the gym every night cannot be compromised, you can adapt to this. Instead of taking time away from the gym, you might read half an hour less at night and limit your Internet usage to fifteen minutes instead of three hours. To know what you can and cannot compromise in times of need, you must have a good understanding of your abilities, beliefs and willpower.
To be confident in yourself is absolutely necessary to lead a successful life. To be able to make effective decisions based upon specific data is imperative to success. Based on my past decisions and actions, I have collected various plots of random data. For example:

-It is not wise to cross the street without looking.

-If it is cold outside, a jacket may be helpful.

-It is not a good idea to run a red light.

-If I received a bad grade on a test, I can conclude I did not do enough studying or did not understand the subject enough to do well on the test.

Through these various learning experiences, I have become an individual who has good “common sense.” I can use these experiences to make better decisions in the future. I now wear a coat outside when it is cold. I do not run red lights because my mom was pulled over last week for running a red light. I was almost hit by an SUV when running across the post road in 8th grade, and I can conclude that it is a bad idea to cross the road without looking.
You must have confidence in your decisions so that you can make good choices. If your friend tells you that it is only twenty degrees outside and that a jacket is not necessary, you need to have confidence in your will against her bad decision. You need to need to be strong and confident in your decision that wearing a coat is a good idea, so that you won't freeze to death. You may even try to convince your friend that wearing a coat is much better than hypothermia.
It is good to have confidence in your decisions. By having confidence in your decisions, you understand that these decisions are the right way for you to go. You have at your disposal everything you have learned in life so far to make life-changing decisions that are suitable for you.
Understanding yourself is part of life. By knowing your personal standards, abilities and feelings, you can make effective decisions. You can have an opinion, be able to self-assess, and understand why and where your life is going the way it is. By knowing yourself, you can heighten your knowledge of the world through critical thinking and confident decision-making.

Part B

My worst quality......

My standards are sometimes set too high to reach. Last year I earned straight A's, but this year is less that I would like. I understand, though, why I cannot earn the same grades as last year. I am in more difficult classes, have a boyfriend, am applying to colleges with fast approaching deadlines, am working on an art portfolio, and playing an active role in various clubs and activities. Although I do all this, my stress level is relatively low. Only very rarely do I have breakdowns. I stubbornly believe that because I am not continually stressed, I should never be stressed out. This sometimes leads to my holding in problems that need to be dealt with. My standards are high for myself, in that I believe I do not have any problems, but I really do. I rarely talk about stress or about my problems, but drown myself in other activities to hide from having to deal with my problems.

I lack understanding of myself where I cannot define the line between a reach and an obtainable reach.

Part C

I would say my best quality is determination. I decide to do something and I do it. If i received a bad grade on a test, I want to know what I didn't do correctly. I base my future actions upon my past experiences. I fix my study habits so that next time I have a better chance of doing well. I have the ability to set my mind to do something and to carry out those plans. I have drive and potential. I try my best to use that drive to expand my potential.

My best and worst qualities may seem very similar to you. They are essentially the same thing. Determination to reach my goals is a good thing, but when I set goals that are too far to reasonably reach, they become problems.

Part D

It is difficult for people to face their weaknesses. Most people know their weaknesses but avoid them. They are insecure about their pitfalls because they do not know how to deal with them. Many people are insecure in that what they think of a strength in themselves may not be the role model of strengths. Some people may be insecure if they are unsure weather their best quality is one to be desired by others. One's image of oneself may be ruined by the admittance of a worst quality. If someone's worst quality is to be a hypocrite but they vehemently oppose people who are hypocritical, their cause is not just ironic but logically incorrect. One's inability to admit one's worst quality can result in contradiction to what one believes in.

Personally, I don't really enjoy writing about my pitfalls. It makes me uncover things that I do not uncover on a daily basis. Underlying problems and things I don't usually deal with are dug up from the grave and returned to haunt my thoughts. This problem has roots that stem from other deep problems and hidden issues. One is my insecurity about certain things. My strengths, on the other hand, are pretty easy to write about, since I use them nearly every day.