Fighting for Life

I’ve come to realise that in my 21 years, life can be one of the hardest things to deal with. As a child, I often changed my mind about what I wanted to be from a Doctor, to an Animator, to a Singer, and to a Journalist. Like most children you believe you can do anything, but somehow people gradually destroy your positive outlook on life and tell you your not good enough, until we eventually lose the courage to go after our dreams. And I’ve found that adapting to the real world has turned out to be such a struggle.

It has only just occurred to me recently how difficult surviving in the adult world can be. But when did life get so complicated?

It just seems that one day you’re fine and the next, the whole world is on your shoulders. So when is it supposed to get easier?

I’ve been told that these are supposed to be the best years of a person’s life. But honestly I really don’t believe that in the slightest.

Take me for example, leaving school to go on to university.

Beforehand I’d never lived away from home, and it’s quite an adjustment taking care of yourself for the first time. All of a sudden I had to manage the little money I had, find a part time job, pay bills, do the laundry, the food shopping, and study at the same time. All of this on top of personal problems at home really got to me.

Finding our own way in the world was never going to be easy, but with problems from here and there creeping in all over the place, it can really throw you off course and ruin a person’s whole belief system. Not just belief in ones self, but belief in the world that we live in.

What gets me is that everyone of us has to go through this transition, from being a child in to an adult and being able to make it on your own. Yet no one is ever there to lend a helping hand. If anything, people make it harder for you. Sometimes it feels like your desperately trying to claw your way up in life and someone keeps pushing you down again.

But how long can a person keep on fighting?

I really believe that we have to experience certain things in life and we’d never appreciate anything if we didn’t work for it. But more often than not, it’s like you’re fighting a losing battle.

Surely there has to be a light at the end of this dark depressing tunnel. Otherwise, what are we fighting for?

Being positive can be so testing at times, and I myself have often felt like giving up. But my fighting spirit never seems to let me.

I suppose what we all need to remember is, anyone who has tried is not a failure. People often put others down because of their own failures.

Back when I was in school, we were asked to make a list of the things we hoped to achieve in life. I don’t remember everything that I wrote down, but I know that I’ve already achieved so many things that I put on my list. It was my dream to go to New York, and last Summer I made it happen. I wanted to run the Great North Run, and in October that’s exactly what I’ll be doing. I wanted to go to University, I wanted to live in London, I wanted to travel on my own and see so many amazing places. And I did it. Unfortunately, I’m still working on passing my driving test!

But whenever I do feel like a failure, I think about that list I once made as a young teen, and I know that failure is far from what I am. Despite what other people say or think.

It takes great courage to go and live your dreams.

And no dream is impossible.