I like your goals anita;) I think you have already achieved or are well on your way to “helping others when possible and being humble in helping others.” you give great insight and advice; your positive encouragement helps cheer me up. i think i am going to adopt your goal of “keeping calm day and night” because there are times when i feel stressed and have doubts and the competition in school can be straining at times. whenever i feel strained i think i will do yoga, workout and meditate. Good luck with your goals, anita;)

Great goals everyone;) Good luck on them;) Elle, when you mentioned that “you and your love need to talk about strengthening your relationship” reminds of something i need to work on myself. i tend to be really shy when i like someone and it takes some time to tell them how i feel. my voice doesn’t squeak or anything, but my heartbeat faster and my mind seems to be in swirls and sometimes my face will turn red if i say hi to them. i would love to have the confidence to tell the people and the guy that i love how much i care about him, but i can only do it in little ways in which i smile at him or talk to him about school or make him laugh, i just can’t talk to him about how much i care about him. I like your goal of being “compassionate, caring and understanding” which exactly what i want to be in life;) matty, i like your goal on giving back to others, my friends and teachers have given me so much and it would be great to give them something in return. i also think i will add the goal of keeping my mind active and continuing to learn since i enjoy learning new things.

elle, i agree that if everyone could just let negative things go and be more compassionate and understanding of others, we would have less discrimination and more peace in society. there are times when i am stressed and i tend to distance myself from the guy i love because i don’t want him to see me stressed and sometimes he thinks i’m ignoring him, but i’m really not, i just need some time alone to collect my thoughts. it can be hard for both of us at times to see the others’ distress because we wish we could take away the sadness, but sometimes we just need to give each other time to ourselves. yet we should still continue to encourage each other, talk to each other and not hold our negative feelings back until they overwhelm us. the best feeling about being in love with someone is that it makes you appreciate your life and develop more compassion for yourself and others. it also makes you try harder in things you do since you know someone is there to support you. and the important lesson and best thing about love is that even if it doesn’t last, there will always be memories and you have become a better person and you have learned to trust, take chances and also learn to let go. i always believe people come into your life for a reason and i often find the reason for me is to make me appreciate myself more, learn the beauty of life and trust and the importance of love, most of the love i have for people is spiritual. yet, at times sometimes there will be that one person that lights up your world and makes you really experience love and the beauty of what it feels like to be alive and you two share both a physical and spiritual connection. there are times in wish i could be more confident around him, that i could spend more time with him. with all the school stuff and the other guy friends i have with math and science i feel like i am leaving him out at times. i don’t want him to feel like i’m forgetting about him because he means the world to me and i would do anything for him and if i have to let him go i’ll be okay as well.