Captured Thought: Looking in the Glass

Oh the pressures of high school and the stress of life. Sometimes I scream into my pillow hoping my stone cold cries would freeze a moment in time where I could sort things out. My grades, my classes, my friends, my activities, my thoughts, hopes and dreams, I feel as if I'm being tugged into an undertow... being jostled in a way that's as disorienting as tiring, waves crash down once more while my body is tugged in a multitude of directions. What really captivated me was why do I put myself through this? Stress is a part of life, but do I make it harder on myself than necessary? I started to think about balance, and which balance would make me happy when I came across a completely different point altogether. Am I who I want to be? How satisfied I am with my life is completely predicated off of what my parents, friends, and when you get down to it, what the world thinks of me. I'm sick of trying to please everyone, but can I break free from my own standards now so reinforced I can't differentiate if they were mine or my brothers'? My dad introduced me to a poem a year or to ago, which I haven't thought about until tonight to be honest. It's called "Man in the glass." It doesn't matter what the world may say, because until you can look at yourself in that glass and like what you see, you will never be happy. I'm going to have to go through my life and figure out what it takes for me to like who I am. Once I figure it out, maybe life will smooth some bumps out. I'll be searching until then...