Everything Happens for a Reason by Annabelle

Everything Happens for a Reason by Annabelle - July 2025 Scholarship Essay

The one piece of advice I would give my past self is everything happens for a reason. I used to spend the longest time overthinking certain choices, certain actions, certain mistakes. Without those uncertainties I would not be where I am today and would most certainly be a completely different person. I want my past self to know this advice, so that she wouldn’t be scared to take the risks she was so afraid to do. I want her to know that even with every choice and every mistake she had ever made that she may have regretted that there was a reason for each and every one of them.

I feel like the saying everything happens for a reason is so cliche, but it's the straight truth. What if I never grew up playing soccer, would I still have grown up learning to be tough, learning what it’s like to crave the thought of winning every game? Or would I grow up more weak and not know what it’s like to get ruffled up every weekend like clock work? What if my parents never got a divorce, would I have grown up in San Diego my whole life? Would I have two happy parents raising me, or one trying to keep a smile on his face for the sake of his kids? Would I have grown up to be someone I would call a stranger? If none of those things ever happened where would I be now, what would my life look like, what type of person would I have become?

This is the one piece of advice I would have ever wanted in order to get through everything high school had to offer. Going from middle school to highschool, I was fresh out of Covid. If that never happened would I have realized my friends from middle school weren’t good friends to me, because they never texted or called to check in and see how I was doing. Or would I have been stuck with those friends that didn’t care about me at all, and didn’t wonder what I was up to. In the end, I ended up meeting my best friends in the whole world in high school and I know for a fact that was meant to happen. They were purposely planted into my life for a reason. They support me and give me the best advice and are there for me through everything, without them I would be nowhere. I would be lost transitioning into college, lost in many thoughts, lost in life even. Everything happens for a reason is the best piece of advice I could have ever asked for because it gave me a completely different outlook towards life. I wish younger me had been told that in order to stop her from overthinking everything that has happened in her life is because certain things do happen for a reason. What’s meant to happen will evidently make its way into the course of a person's life, no matter what stage of life you are going through.