How many of you are counting your problems, instead of counting your blessings?

BY KAHA GEDI

Growing up is one of the most beautiful parts of life. It’s a journey filled with so many lessons and experiences, the good and the bad, as well as moments where we can laugh at ourselves and reflect how much we’ve grown. Growth and learning new things aren’t about having the “perfect” childhood, it’s about: appreciating how far we’ve come as individuals, recognizing how strong we are, and being present for how much more we can still learn from life.

2024 has been such a rough year for all of us. Let’s end it reflecting on how much we’ve achieved not just this year, but the years before. There’s a study that shows how we as human beings tend to remember negative memories more than the positive ones mostly due to them being closely linked to intense emotions like anger, frustration, stress, anxiety, or embarrassment. According to medium.com, “There are times when we wish we could just permanently delete our bad memories,” but we should realize that “The bad experiences we’ve survived allow us to feel gratitude.“

Quick question. Have you realized that we could count our problems on maybe one, two, or even three hands, but we can never count the blessings we have in our lives?

I’ll never forget the day, while snooping through my old Google Classroom archives, I stumbled across my grade five class. There it was, random texts from classmates, assignments I’d turned in, all frozen in time. Intrigued, I thought, why not see how well I was doing back then?

I clicked assignments, and read some of my work which was hilarious, and I think how different I write and express myself now. (Thankfully it did change, now that would have been a huge problem)

However, there is one assignment I want to share with you. It finally caught my eye, “Write a sentence using THEIR.” I was like, “Oh that’s so easy, let me see what I wrote.” Then to my surprise, I handed in “kaha put her back pack over their.” Lower case name, no period (I had to add one now, of course), and the wrong use of “their.” Despite my answer being completely wrong, I just laughed at how silly it was, and that moment made me especially grateful for teachers. I admired their: patience, kindness, and willingness to guide students like me, no matter how silly our mistakes were.

Looking back, moments like these remind me that growing up isn’t just about getting things right, it’s about: learning, laughing, and appreciating how far we’ve come. Every strength, every mistake, every awkward moment, and every challenge has shaped us into who we are today. So, as this year comes to an end, let’s take a moment to celebrate our growth, no matter how small it seems, and let us never forget that growing up is never perfect, but it’s always worth it.