I found essays I wrote when I was 17. I'm 22 now.

I would randomly want to read the things I wrote to see just how much I've changed from my perspective of things to how I wrote and articulate my words. I really wanted to edit these but I want to show you how I used to write back then. This essay below is from one of my notebooks. This was written by 2017 me when I was 17 and I am now 22.

When you always stay at the house, and you don't have anything to do, you tend to think about things. You think about your life, what you do, what you will do, your friends, your family, the people around you, the lessons you learned, the experiences you had, the mistakes you made, the words you said, the actions you did, the decisions you made, the decisions you will make, the feelings you felt, what you believe in, what your limitations are, to what extent is your potential, what you can't do, and what you can do. You think about life itself. Thoughts and opinions will always fill your head. You will never stop thinking about something or someone. It is a part of us.

Sometimes, when a thought pops up, you tend to keep it to yourself. But when you do, you forget about it and it will be lost in your mind for some time. When something happens relating to your "lost" thought, you will remember it. But even so, you will keep it again. It will get lost again, you will remember it again and the cycle goes on until you choose to share it with the world. You never know that thought of yours can inspire or help someone out there. Just to be sure that that thought is not offensive or insensitivities in any way.

Reading that essay made me think of where I was in my life when I wrote this. Growing up, the only places I would go to would be to school, church, and to my home. My mom was very strict and allowed me to go to only those three places. When I was staying at home, internet connections at home were not very popular then so the only way to entertain myself would wander around in my mind. I remember exactly what I was trying to say in this essay. Because of how often I wander, I would forget some thoughts and randomly remember them again. It got so frequent that it turned into a cycle. This essay made me want to write down my thoughts and someday share them to others. Back then, I didn't know how to do it but 5 years later, I found writing online. It's honestly crazy how I believed that I will never share my writings with others and am now doing it right now. The same notebook had other essays I wrote from when I was 17. The essay you will read next is about conflicts.

Life is full of conflicts. The things we say contradict each other. The lyrics of songs we hear contradict each other. There is night and darkness and there is day and light. There is good and there is bad. There is rain and there is sunshine. The thing we see contradict each other. There is happiness and there is sadness. The things we feel contradict each other Even our thoughts contradict each other. Conflicts, contradictory and dilemmas are everywhere. These are a part of life. These are life itself. As hurtful, difficult and painful as it is, conflict balances between things. We need balance in our life. It helps us live our life. Without conflict, there is no plot. Without conflict, life wouldn't be beautiful.

This essay was honestly a bit difficult to read. I felt like I was trying really hard to be deep. I'm not really sure what I was trying to say here but I do remember how I used to get pissed off when I would discover contradictions, especially in conversations. I had an obsession with being consistent. I was probably trying to explain to myself through an essay that there are contradictions everywhere so I shouldn't be worked up about contradictions. That's what I would think now but I'm unsure whether it was the reason I had when I wrote this essay. I am actually having fun writing this so I'll put in one more essay from the same notebook.

We experience all kinds of things. We experience pain, guilt, love, lust, anger, interest in things, impatience, and all kinds of feelings. Let's face it. We all experience these feelings BUT these feelings has different varieties. You cannot say that you know exactly how people feel. For example, your friend is mad at someone who bullied him. You already experienced it and you say you know they feel. Not really. Because you both might have experienced the same topic, bullying. But you were both bullied in different ways. Yes, a lot of people experience things similar to you but they didn't experience the exact same situation as you. Another thing is that we are all unique. We all see things differently, feel things differently, understand things differently and learn things differently. So you can't really fully understand the situation or they're in or the experience they had.

Imagine yourself playing with colors. You add blue and white together and it becomes light blue, right? Then you added two more colors. Try to think of what color those two are. So from light blue, it becomes another color. You set aside that color and made a new combination. You added blue and white again. But this time, you added the same two colors into the darker light blu. So when you compare the two, the first and the second mixture has different shades of the same color. Do you get it now? The 2 colors are the experiences we have. The 2 mixtures represent us. It shows that we are different from each other. So, next time you find out that you experienced something similar to someone, try to be more sensitive. Because each and every one of us are experiencing something no one can understand but God. Since he created us and gave us those challenges, obstacles, and experiences to make us who we are now. So keep going, keep the faith, keep living the life you have.

This essay was very interesting for a number of reasons. I actually still think like this. I have worded this essay very poorly but I understood what I was trying to say since I still have that notion. It helped me understand that there are multiple perspectives because of how a person grows from different experiences.

These three essays gave me a good idea of how I used to think. They showed me a window into how I used to write. These essays, to me, felt like I was trying to sound smart. Some of the points I put in those essays were pretty good but others were sub-par. I noticed a pattern in how I wrote. I was using a lot of descriptions without elaborating on what I meant by them. I put punctuation marks in the wrong places. The idea was there but the execution was brutal. Luckily, that was five years ago and I have been improving. All in all, I'm glad that I did this. These notebooks and papers are like a time capsule of a time in my life. I am sure to keep them and revisit them years later once more.