Tell a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it.
In fourth grade, I sat out most games of four-square that I played. I did not like sitting out, but no one ever noticed, not until I made a new friend. She noticed that I never smiled while waiting, so she played any game with me as long as it made me feel better. Because I had not yet learned to express my thoughts, playing with my friend was the first time that I felt free to just say or do whatever I wanted. Through vocal performance and Silver Lining, an online community for mental health, I have worked to help others express their own thoughts and feelings.
When I grew older, the same feelings of freedom I felt on the playground with my friend were rekindled through singing. I started taking vocal lessons to learn how to better express myself. Within my six years of these classes, I discovered that songs are combinations of sounds and meanings, which create stories that heat up in crescendos and conclude in powerful fortissimos. Turning sound into a story is what makes music art and a powerful way to express thoughts.
Recently, I realized that my vocal talent allows me to sing in a way that expresses artist’s feelings. At a singing workshop, I sang Alicia Keys’ “Girl on Fire,” a calm yet anthemic song that boasts the achievements of women. I saw the audience identify with the message of independence and personal conviction. During that performance, one girl’s face lit up; she grinned and mouthed the words, her body tensing with excitement at every accent. She later told me that hearing such a powerful song performed live, with all of the raw emotion that my voice and facial expressions exuded, offered a new way to hear the song’s true meaning.
As I began to see how the stress of perfection affected people’s mental well-being in high school, my focus shifted from music to the people around me. Upon this revelation, I decided to take a step back and help people around me express their feelings about their states of mind. My school is notorious for being extremely competitive; most students focus on receiving A's, getting high test scores, and participating in several extracurricular activities. Many of my classmates, myself included, are so busy that we barely get five hours of sleep. The more time we spent in this environment, the worse things seemed to get, and the more likely we were to develop long-term mental health problems. I wanted to help people let go of this stress and avoid these issues in the future, so my friends and I established Silver Lining.
Silver Lining is an online community that helps people combat mental health problems, ranging from stress to anxiety and depression, while raising awareness of the importance of these issues. We do so by creating motivational posts and tips for social media and by messaging people to get them to talk freely about their problems. We share our own stories for others to draw inspiration and hope. We quickly gained hundreds of followers from many areas worldwide, who often comment on posts and message us. Silver Lining became a safe space for both members and followers to talk about their stress.
Helping people by providing them an environment to express their feelings through my music and Silver Lining has helped me realize how important others’ well-being and happiness are to me. These two experiences have made me realize that what I want to do in life is not an occupation, but a calling: to help people feel free to express themselves.