Greatest piece of advice I've received recently.....

The greatest piece of advice that I’ve received recently from someone is… “Don’t get distracted by the silly things and stay focused on what really matters”. My step mom, Stana, told me this senior year of high school when I was about to graduate. My stepmom is very strong (physically and mentally) woman and so driven to do her best at everything she does. Whether it’s with her workouts or in the office. When I first met, her I was just starting sixth grade and by seventh grade, she was living with us. I look back now and thank god for her. My family has never even thought about college. Especially living with my mom and dad. My dad didn’t finish high school and my mom had to decline HBU acceptance letter because she got pregnant. So school wasn’t important you could say, or it just wasn’t something you gave an idea.

When my stepmom moved in things got tough just a tad. She was starting to monitor everything we did and questioned my we weren’t more involved in school when we should have been. Seventh grade was the transition from not sure what I’ll be doing after high school to now starting to look at school I potentially like. My siblings and I went to an Arts middle school, so there were so many electives to choose from. She made sure we were in at least one sport and one elective. Later before we left middle school and moved on, we all ended up participating in 3 sports each and two electives.

“Don’t get distracted by the silly things and stay focused on what really matters.” This advice is very useful in all sorts of ways. It helps you have a clear mind when you're troubled. It makes you ask yourself, if whatever you are doing now, how is it going to benefit you or your goal in the future. Through high school, that’s when my stepmom started to get stricter on her rules. My mother never disciplined us unless she needed too because she knows that we’ll mess up and we are ones to acknowledge our faults and confront them with a solution. However, my stepmom would be a tad pushy. More forceful with her words. She was around more often than my mom because of work hours. So there were a lot of lectures.

I wouldn’t trade my life for anyone. I think I am truly blessed to be where I am today. I blessed to have such amazing mothers that are so successful in their careers. I’m blessed that I was given someone to help me when I needed help. Without Stana, I would not be here, I would have not been able to do all the things I wanted throughout the last 7 years of school. I hope others like this advice, it’s very useful if you’re stuck on what to do, or even if it’s making friends.