What do you believe is the key to success? Many often think the key to success is intelligence and wealth, but I believe otherwise. My name is Darlene Thor, a sophomore student currently attending Luther Burbank High School. I believe that I am an individual with persistence. Having this perseverance in me has led me further into my life journey to experience new things and overcoming challenges I thought I never would’ve been able to. Art is something I've grown attached to and I hope to improve. One movie I was pleased by is called “Spirited Away” because it taught me that you will never know what you took for granted until it’s gone and that if you want it back, you will have to work hard and never give up. Therefore, I am persistent, and I will continue to find a way to get back up even after failing a challenge.

Art has grown an important place in my life, because it helps me express myself and allows me to get as creative as I want. For example, some people might think that art is just a blank canvas with a whole bunch of colors splattered onto it. When your mindset starts to develop and understand the meaning into little or big things, perhaps the view you have seen before begins to alter into the new understanding that you’ve opened for yourself. Anyhow, since I've been so attached to art from when I was younger, it encourages me to improve and do better than before. For example, my drawings when I was young were all in my style back then, but as I got older I began to see a variety of different art styles which really made me see more than what I saw before. I knew that once I saw the open view of all these new and many art styles, I was going to have a variety of people and art styles to look up to.

My favorite movie that I enjoyed watching was Spirited Away because of Chihiro’s perseverance within the movie. For example, Chihiro continued to work through obstacles that came her way and never gave up on searching for her parents. Even though she doubted herself at first, she still managed to gain supporters and friends along the way which gave her the confidence to continue searching for her parents even through the hardest obstacles. Chihiro’s perseverance allowed her to find hope in finding her parents.

In the future, I want to have a family of my own and be able to travel to many places. I suppose this dream can be achieved if I continue to be consistent and hard working throughout my schooling and job. For example, to be able to get a stable and well paying job, I'd most likely have to at least have an Associates Degree, but it would be a bit more beneficial to have a Bachelor’s Degree. Knowing where I want to be in the future and how I want to achieve that, I will definitely put in a lot of effort and hard work to achieve where I want to be, possibly in the next eight to ten years. I’m confident that this journey won’t be as easy as I believe it will but sometimes we just have to work through it in order to get to where we want to go. However I decide what to do with my future, I'll be appreciative and grateful for what I do have around.

As for having a family of my own, I believe this decision will definitely be something that I have to really plan out before stepping into that zone. When it comes to starting your own family, you have to think to yourself before initiating this move, for example, “Am I ready?” or perhaps, “Am I committed enough to support a family of my own? Is my current situation stable enough for me to continue moving further?”. Initiating  a family isn’t an easy commitment to stick with because that means that you will be responsible for looking after and protecting more people than just yourself. Though, considering I really look forward to having a family of my own, this is also a burning fuel that keeps me going. I want to be able to provide my own family with a lot of support and be able to provide them with things that I didn’t really receive growing up. The thought of initiating my own family motivates me to do well in school and find a good stable job to be able to support not only myself but my family that I look forward to having in the future.

In general, it can be said that I am a persevering individual who will not give up after minor inconveniences. I am supported by my family who are the people who are the burning fuel to my motivation and perseverance to keep going. I learned from Chihiro that even when you feel like giving up, don’t. If you know you can still continue then don’t bother thinking about stopping. In the future, I will continue to be persistent to have a family of my own while being able to travel. Find your burning fuel to keep your perseverance going ; to discover what the future holds for you.