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Look for beauty in everyday life.

I used to think the world was ugly. Maybe not the world, but the people in it. I was completely blind to the world around me.

One of the ways I unwind on my way home from school is to put earbuds in, listen to music, and stare out the window. Sure, the route is always the same, but something new happens every day.

Friday, for example, there were gardeners working on the sides of the roads. And I looked at them, and how one was explaining something to the other, and it hit me that the other had a life completely his own. Maybe a wife and kids. A mother and a father. A sister and a brother.

I look at the bare winter trees. Some people think they're bleak, boring, or ugly. But I see how many branches there are, and how they break up our beautiful blue sky. Sometimes a flower will be on one of the branches, a reminder that even in the harshest conditions we can still grow.

My favorite season is fall, when the evergreen trees stay green and the others turn brilliant shades of red, orange, and brown. Wind swirls dead leaves and my poor neighbor can't sweep them off his driveway fast enough.

I look at the cloudy sky, a view I never grow tired of. The vastness of it reminds me of how small we are—how we need to make our life have meaning, or we won't be remembered.

I am reminded of the world's beauty every time I see my crush smile, or when I get to hold
a baby, or when I compliment someone and their face lights up.

Learn to see the world's beauty, because it's there.