[Below are reflections on the theme of "simplicity" from my summer.]

When we encounter obstacles, challenges, failures, rejections, or struggles, we instinctively feel a sense of disappointment and discourage. As we grow, we continue to face even more obstacles, and I often find these situations to have a domino effect. For instance, if I face an obstacle in something in my life, then sometimes everything else in my life could fall downhill along with that.

As I grow older, I am facing more and more failures in my life and this summer I finally asked myself why I get disappointed by these failures and why do failures have to be such a bad thing? Of course I knew that I get disappointed because these struggles were never what I intended to occur.

One day, I thought to myself, "If only my life were so simple, then I wouldn’t have any of these problems”.

I didn’t know it then, but that thought sparked an incredible realization.

A regular part of my life consists of constantly checking social media and being connected to the internet. In fact, this is probably what many other 16 year-olds do as well. With the endless binge-watching shows on Netflix to the seemingly-like unlimited supply of entertainment on YouTube, it is so easy to spend countless hours a day on our screens.

My perspective of my life changed when I went to Japan for two weeks this summer. I have visited Japan quite regularly throughout my childhood, however when I arrived this time, I saw everything in a way I have never seen before. I noticed the beautiful rice fields only a few minutes from my grandparents house. I noticed the sound of bugs chirping all day long. I have noticed before how my grandparents live so simply, but this time, I saw their lifestyle in awe. I observed many locals putting so much effort and passion into everything they do, it all looked so simple in a complex way.

After I came back home, I decided to try to see everything in simplicity. For example, when I came back home, I had so many emails, and so many tasks to catch up on, it would have seemed incredibly overwhelming. Beginning to see things in such a simple way was something that I was not used to doing. So, I just had to think about it in a different way. Even when facing the busiest, most complicated situations, I thought about seeing it broken down into simpler tasks.

When encountering failures or rejections, you get a reason to just get back right up and work harder. Perhaps another significant factor to simplicity was social media. I tried to not use certain social media apps for about a week and it was so amazing. It was incredibly difficult to resist the urge of this everyday routine, but at the end I totally forgot about it and I did not go on it very much.

I still have so much to learn and discover about myself about simplicity, but for now seeing life in a simple way makes the complications fade away.