Thinking With Your Head – Alex Johnson

When I wake up in the morning my brain has already started going before I have. I plan every part of my day before it has even happened to stop any problems from occurring. Obviously this doesn’t work every time and I’m still trying to grasp that concept. For me, thinking with your head means to look at problems logically to try and figure out the solution. It might even mean looking at every single little detail until you think that you can solve the problem. Most of the time people like me do not like to show their emotions because logically, that won’t solve anything.

Sometimes thinking with my head is a burden for me. I wish I could be more emotional with the people I love. I wish that they could see how I am feeling, but it’s not that simple. It is almost as if my emotions are locked away in a box and I lost the key. This can be troubling for my friends as well because if I can’t tell how I am feeling, then neither can they. This has made it increasingly hard for me to make friends. It was easier when I was a kid to make new friends because I didn’t really do any of the work. Most of the people I had made friends with when I was younger came up and started talking to me, I just had to sit back and wait for them. Then when I grew up, things started to become difficult. Not many people in high school willingly walk up to you in an attempt to become your friend, and nowadays if someone just started talking to you it would seem weird. I still can’t comprehend why being nice is now considered to be weird.

Aside from all of that, there is a bright side to being a thinker. Even though I have a hard time showing my emotions, to others it may just seem like I am being strong in my time of crisis even if my emotional battle is something way bigger than they will ever know. Also, I may overanalyze every single situation but I have deepened my understanding of critical thinking, and I don’t really have a one-track mind anymore. I am lucky to be someone that doesn’t have a hard time in school, which I would like to think is because of my ability to look at every detail before making a decision. I also started to grasp more intelligent topics at a younger age, which makes it easier to have conversations with adults without feeling inferior.

Thinking with my head has made me unique in a way that no one else will ever be. I may be a little weird and I may have some problems that I don’t even know to to fix yet. But I wouldn’t change any of the experiences that have come along with thinking with my head, and it might do you some good to add a little logic to your life.

Thinking With Your Heart – Mollie Wagner

I climb out of my princess bed and ravish in my pink walls and diamond lights. I drag my feet into the bathroom and the cold tile soothes my warm skin. My blonde curls are in full swing, going every which way but I could care less. I put on my favorite blue sweater with a huge sequined heart in the middle, it was my favorite because it was the greatest representation of who I was; a lover and an even bigger dreamer. For my birthday that year, I was given my first pink journal with an engraved M on the front, my first entry was the most dramatic. I sat criss cross on my floor with my pink pen with a pink pom pom attached. I scribbled on about my third grade crush, and would finish writing every night by marking my page with the felt heart that was connected to the spine. I knew the shoes ahead of me were too big to fill, and that’s still true. But as far as I was concerned, I was the dreamer. For only being a small impressionable girl, my personality was taller than I was. I used to add color to everything black and white, to where my mind was like a whole coloring book completely outside the lines. I sit here with my heart in a state of reminiscing and I remember why I can’t forget.

As I write my millionth story about me and my life, being Mollie just makes a little bit more sense again, I am a firm believer in following my heart. I do everything possible to dig out the deepest roots and darkest secrets of everything, with the help and guidance of my deepest root; my heart. Ever since I was small, I was always taught to do whatever I thought was right. I engraved those words into my bones and always lived my life by them. As I got older life just dragged on- the curls deflated, the blonde faded and my smile became smaller. My head took control of who I was and I had to make decisions based on what the world thought was right, not what I whole heartedly believed was right. Years ago my head took me by the hands and said “When it rains it pours,” and I’ve never looked back on those words since. It took me years to finally realize that being a huge dreamer with a fast pace and determined heart was woven into the fabrics of who I am.

My dreams are extravagant and bold. I have always been the kind of girl who sits in class and some days will spend the whole period doodling flowers or repetitive circles while daydreaming about my future, my past, or the groundbreaking present. While in the midst of learning who I was about 2 years ago, my heart faced definite bumps in the road and sometimes it needed a sick day. My heart had a maddening firm grip on my life and once I opened it to kinder souls and gentler smiles, I’ve learned that when it rains there’s always an umbrella. With that,

Dream with only yourself in mind. Love hard and dream big. Most of all, whatever it is that you were made to do and whoever you were destined to be, follow your heart. It grips you hard and shows no sign of relenting.