In September, Time magazine first appears in my mailbox. Though I had never expressed a keen interest in current events, I had a longing desire to keep abreast with the world around me, for I believed I would find myself more easily if I looked beyond suburban Philadelphia. As I read the magazine, I realized I had moved closer to the "real world" even though I continued to lope about East High School. This consciousness gave me inspiration to continue to build myself as a person, and I pined each week to recline and take in the world.

While Time brought me closer to the world, I recognized I still lay at a great distance from my first "real-world" experience. As the work from my demanding schedule piled up, I found myself entrenched within a rather unattractive adolescent rut. Each morning when I awoke, I remembered the relative unimportance of my day-to-day struggles as they pertained to my life as a whole. To accompany these rather pessimistic thoughts, I determined that I would rather find myself as a forty-year-old father slaving to feed his family. To this point, I had solely prepared – I had yet to add anything of great substance to the world. Thankfully, everyday excitement maintained my youthful exuberance well enough that I did not become forever engulfed by morbid imaginations.

As I had in previous school years, I strove for perfection through constant evaluation of my own status. Soon, in a daydream, I glanced upon a crystallization of my future existence and how ambition would lead me to my ultimate end. When a close confidante mentioned that I might become anything, even President of the United States of America, I dreamed of where I might head and what steps I ought to take. Although I could not pinpoint its cause, I perceived that I would succeed in pursuing any path that I might take in life. My head swirled, analyzing my possibilities of future greatness...

Early in my junior year, I gathered that the college selection process had begun and that I did not really want to devote time to what appeared as such a far-off destination. With the help of the East guidance department and my parents, my blood pressure skyrocketed many times as I worried that I might never search out the "right college." When I found several individuals who had their futures painted brilliantly already, I panicked, for I knew my ambition would direct me somewhere I had not yet determined. After several months of needless panicking, I realized that I might best find where I ought to head by analyzing where I had been. Still, I saved myself from undue pressure by asserting that finding the future might not come within high school. My patience paid off as my blood pressure and stress levels receded.

Eleventh grade brought companionship as I had never before imagined. Within East High School, I cherished the diversity and richness of my peers and sought to discover the variety of perspectives around me. I quickly realized that friends come in many packages and that I had failed to recognize that young ladies listened better than brutish young men wanting to exhibit their machismo. As I trotted into school each day, I anticipated the positive social interaction that had disappeared for some time. My soul smiled happily as I received a steady flow of emotional nourishment.