Don’t live in the past.

This philosophy means to not think about what you or others have done, but what you or those around you are going to do. Living in the past makes ones future harder to make and it overall leads to a clouded judgement. Therefore with this clouded judgement comes nothing but both interior and exterior adversities and hardships.

Your future depends on what you do today.

This means to live everyday as if it’s your last. To do anything an everything to the best of your ability as it will make your future much easier to control. Overall this philosophy is saying that the life decisions you make now will dictate who your future self will turn out to be.

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.

Never cheat yourself. Do not take the less challenging route because by challenging yourself you will gain both experience and strength when another hardship comes in your path. Overall by achieving something through hard work and dedication there will be more self fulfillment.

Don’t follow someone else, be the leader worth following.

This basically means to not follow a set path, but make your own instead

Narrative: In the summer when I was 11 years old I had to bike to my cousins house every morning cause i was to young to stay home alone. Everyday we ended up going to 7-11 (corner store) to grab snacks and drinks for the day and every time we went my older cousin ended up stealing about 3 to 5 items. When we got home I’d always ask for some but he said I can only if I paid him double the amount it was at the store. As days went by I got jealous and decided to steal something myself but ended getting caught by the clerk. I knew doing this was against who I was as a person but I did it because someone else did. This life experience taught me to not follow what others do but to take the high rode and do what I thought was right.