High school is a huge boiling pot of races, styles, identities, opinions, and ideas. It’s bustling halls crowded with hormonal teenagers and teachers screaming for quiet. It’s bald janitors with bad hygiene and it’s girls vying for the attention of boys who store hot air in their muscles.

Amid the short skirts and piercings, only some survive. Okay so, all of them do. But some do it a lot better than others. Some manage to succeed. You know the kids I’m talking about. The Student Body President with his tall, dark, dreamy good looks and his college application armed with a 4.0, you know without psychic ability that he’s going places.

Or the musical prodigy, rocking the system with a violin and great legs. You’re in awe of her and her perfect body that sends you into jealous tears. Or even the math genius, who aced AP Calculus while still managing a perfect score in Physics. No one likes to talk about him much because he’s a little on the creepy side, but hey, he’s still there.

Then there’s you, the kid with too many tardies that’s always running out of lunch money. You can’t play anything more complicated than a DVD, you’re social skills need work, and your grade average is a B+ (not quite an A but just close enough to seriously tick you off).

You’re average. Brown eyes, brown hair, you don’t even stick out in a crowd. You’re keeping your head above water, but the best you can do is a twisted form of doggy paddle/breast stroke maneuver. You don’t have a significant other and you don’t like dating, (at least that’s what you tell yourself so you don’t feel like complete crap over your lack of a love life).

You feel like you will never do anything great, and you will never make a difference because you’re just you. You think you might be interested in being a Teacher or a Librarian eventually-or some career equally mundane-but you’re not sure. You don’t understand what life is all about; you only look so far as the title of the next chapter in your romance novel.

You have to wake up. You think you’re not just as confused as everyone else around you? You think the only way to succeed is to be born gifted? You are wrong. Everyone is scared. Everyone is daunted. It’s a fact and you can’t change it. What you can change is how you go about it.

Would you rather be fierce and brave like the kid last year who sang in the talent show but couldn’t carry half a note or would you rather sit there in self-pity always talking down to yourself? Don't give up, and don't let yourself believe you are only ordinary. You are special, you are interesting. The world is a big place, and there’s a place just for you. 

Now I'm not trying to be pushy, but the thing is, if you never try you will never succeed. If you never sharpen your talents they will dull and fade away. If you don’t take a chance you may never get it again. Life is lived sporadically and questionably. The best you can do is face it optimistically, with your best foot forward.