My past self deserves to see this by Jaeda

My past self deserves to see this by Jaeda - July 2025 Scholarship Essay

If I could give one piece of advice to my past self, it would be to not allow others to dictate your decisions and who you are as a person because not everybody wants to support you and be there for you. A lot of people can be manipulative and want you to believe that they are on your side, that they are your friend, and that they are down for anything when it comes to you. But really, those people are the same ones who are playing you for a fool in secret. They do not care about you at all. You would just be an easy pawn or target for them because they knew that you would fall for their schemes. They knew you would do whatever they told them. I just want you to know that it was never your fault. You thought that what those type of people say was convincing and could be trusted because all you really wanted was for someone not even a group just someone to care about you. I understand how easy it was for you to be influenced by others because you were just so sick and tired of being lonely and being the good kid all the time. You wanted a chance to experience having friends even if they could care less about you. You thought as long as you had friends it did not matter what they did to you. But that was until you realized you started becoming someone who you absolutely hated. You were trying to be like the ones who were awful to you. You thought it was good to be a follower in the beginning. That gossiping, being disrespectful, and giving dirty looks was ok. But then things started to get out of hand when you did it towards someone who never did you wrong. Who actually did have your back and wanted nothing but to support you and be there. You were so hurt that you cried all day all because you allowed yourself to fall into the wrong group and trying to pretend to be someone you are not. You lost a real friend due to you believing the manipulation and dictating of others. You started to feel unhappy with the person you had become because you chose evil over good. Once you realized this, you saw that those people who you thought were friends had turned their backs on you. They trashed talked you and made you feel horrible even though you were trying to act just like them. See how they did not care about you? They wanted to break you. They wanted to see you down on your feet, begging, crying, and whining. They wanted to keep you down. You cried every single day because you felt guilty for what you did and how the outcome turned out. Once you saw how much this broke you, you did your best to not be like others anymore. You distanced yourself from people who were bad influences, you limited your time on social media and did not post as much as you used to, you tried to have a better attitude and be more positive to people and treating people better. But even with you trying to change you noticed that people still did not seem to be interested in you still. You did not have many friends, and you were always alone and that is when you decided to be anti- social. You were scared of the judgement of others. You did not want to tell people your pain. You just kept it inside. You thought you could keep all your pain balled up because you did not want your problems to be a distraction to people. Past self I want you to know that you are more than capable of anything being your own leader. You just cannot allow yourself to get stomped all over by others. I know that not many people are nice in the world, and you will keep coming across those people but that does not mean that you let it change who you are in a negative way. Nobody can tell you how to live your life. All in all, you have to be able to decide for yourself or else you will be walked over. If you are not taking charge of your life and sticking to change then you will find yourself right back to where you started. Now I am sure this is not what you want because you were in a very dark place. You obviously want to see the light. So please understand that it is ok to be yourself, you were never meant to be like anyone or be liked by everyone it is completely normal. Not everyone's lives are easy, and they never will be but we all just have to try to keep standing tall every day even when things get hard. Forgive yourself for your mistakes and wrongdoings. It will always happen to all of us, but we must learn to forgive ourselves because none of us know any better and we are all learners. So past self I get that it may be easy to get caught doing the wrong things but you have to understand the consequences of your choices and how it may affect you and how you live your life.