When I was younger I started having problems with accepting who and what I was which lead to issues such as excessive anger and intense anxiety. I saw a lot of pain and hatred in the world. Towards the end of high school I started realizing (among other things) that we create our own reality. What we feel, think, and experience is all our lives will ever amount to. If we focus on the negative, we become negative. This allowed me to begin on the path of releasing my problems with acceptance and self-realization. Especially in high school, it was a huge help to realize that people are only who they are because it's all they know how to be. When people do and say rude things, it only really hurts themselves because people realize that this negativity only reflects their own pain and makes them look bad. This philosophy allows you to accept the different facets of reality without letting it affect you. These days I try to focus on what I want to be, not what I don't want to be because everything I focus on becomes a part of me.
-James Hartzler
