So, I find myself in the middle of a chaotic high school cafeteria.
And this was not during normal high school hours.
This was actually during summer.
What am I doing in a high school cafeteria during summer?
So, I'm sitting there at the cafeteria at a lunch table.
And I don't really have anyone to talk to and I'm not really using my phone.
And so, I don't really have anything to do and so I'm just kind of sitting there awkwardly
until all of a sudden everything changes.
Now, how did I get to this point?
It all started when during the winter of my junior year, I got an email from a teacher
who runs this program at my school called Leadership Launch.
It's basically like a leadership class.
And I got this email.
She was like, oh yeah, you should be a leader.
You're invited to be a leader.
You were recommended.
And I was like, oh, somebody recommended me to be a leader?
Somebody did recommend me to be a leader and I was like, no, I'm not doing it.
I remember sitting there with my parents talking about it and I was like, nope, not doing it.
And then after a little bit of thinking, like after a couple of days of thinking, I'm like,
oh, maybe I should actually do it because I don't want to do it.
And I remember actually writing that down in the application because I had to apply
to be a leader and so I wrote down in the Google form in the question that said, why
do you want to join leadership?
And I'm like, well, I don't want to.
So that's exactly why I should.
But that's pretty much why I started it.
And then I found myself at the leadership training during summer with a bunch of kids,
a bunch of people my age, all leaders.
And we spent like the past hour playing a bunch of games, doing team building activities.
And it was time for dinner.
We were just sitting there in the cafeteria.
My team was all eating together and then everyone just kind of left to go hang out with their
friends.
And I didn't really have anyone to talk to.
And I wasn't using my phone.
I had my phone, but I was like, I'm not, I don't use my phone anymore.
And so I didn't want to, I knew that it was like a moment of growth to not use the phone
because the phone would have just been a cope and it would have been like something that
I just go on to distract myself from the reality of the situation.
So I didn't want to do that.
I was literally just sitting there awkwardly, literally just like, just like looking around,
just like hoping no one sees me trying to be invisible.
But then I was just like, I remembered what I've been training for because a couple months
before this, I actually started meditating consistently.
And I remembered to control my mind.
And so now I'm sitting in this cafeteria.
Now I'm more relaxed.
Now I'm just like completely controlling my mind, extremely focused.
I'm just looking around.
I can hear all of the noises, like all of the chatter, yelling, people running around,
everyone eating pizza, everyone having a good time.
I'm just looking around.
Somehow I found peace a month amidst the chaos.
I found peace in the middle of an extremely chaotic environment.
And I've actually had social anxiety for a pretty long time.
And so like a situation like that would be like not very fun for me to experience.
But somehow I just something clicked.
And it was like I was in the eye of the storm.
And so for the rest of that night, I was just super calm and chill and relaxed.
That was probably one of the most successful occasions I've ever had in a situation like
that, controlling my mind.
And it really reminds me of how important it is to meditate and actually learn how to
control your mind.
Because you can calm yourself down in any situation.
It's just a matter of actually doing it.