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By Kylee Hoiska
Contributing Writer

I want people to know that they are worth more than how they play their sport or what grade they get on a piece of paper. Their Creator made them for a purpose and those things do not determine or change it. In today’s world, so many people let trivial things determine how they live their life. They all can say that they know they are worth more than how they perform, but do they really? I know I did not.
Being a straight A student and varsity athlete, it has always been hard to find the balance of all my emotions and keeping up in school and everyday life. With that being said, my freshman year was when I really was not able to do that, especially when things got difficult. Mixing that with starting high school, losing friends, having hard classes, and everything else a teenage girl will experience at that age, did not go so well for me. I was letting little things, whether it be a low grade or a bad practice, get to me in ways that it shouldn’t. I found myself thinking my worth was based on how I performed at the previous night’s game or how I did on a math test last Friday. No one should ever have that mindset, yet I did, and so many other people do too.
As the year went on, slowly but surely I got out of that mindset for the most part. I say that because I believe I did not fully grasp the concept of my worth until the end of my sophomore year, and I am still trying to grow and improve that same mindset today. I don’t know how it happened exactly, but at some point it all started to change. I no longer saw myself as my grades or stats; I could feel my understanding of my own worth becoming more. Yes, I still greatly care about those things and strive to perform my absolute best in everything, but I know that in life there are greater things than that. That God did not create me just to get an A or to have the best stats. He made me to live my life and enjoy the world He made with all the people He surrounded me with.
With all that being said, I just want people to know that they are worth more than they could ever imagine. So what if you don’t get an A on your test or play your best at your game? Let those moments be learning ones, not life-determining ones. Hold onto them not to belittle yourself, but to grow yourself. All failure shows is that you have room to improve and that you are trying. Like I said, grades, opinions, statistics, and everything else people will use to judge each other in this world do not determine your worth.
(Kylee Hoiska is a junior at Harlan County High School)