I wrote this sonnet for my Grade 10 Drama class; it was about something that is really close to my heart; the idea that, many of us, as as youth, are told constantly by the people around us, our family, friends, teachers, that we are full of potential and that when we grow up, we will go on to do amazing things in the world, make heaps of money and ultimately, be GREAT.

When I was young, I grew up with this idea that I was special and that I would be GREAT. For years, I lost the idea that to be great, you need to work beyond hard and I fell trap to a life of pleasure and materialism. Around two years ago, as I entered a competitive high school program, I began to realize that there are literally hundreds of other kids equal to if not far better than I am, people with ten times the potential to be GREAT. Now I find I am struggling to catch up with these people, struggling to recapture those years that I lost.

I am literally running, but with each mile, I become more and more out of breath. My heart, my mind fail me, and this race, this race towards greatness, towards success, with every failing breath, becomes a race of growing difficulty, one that, at this moment, seems impossible to win. So now, I am eaten up by this desire to give in, to give up, to quit because I'm tired of failing, of not being the best at SOMETHING. I'm tired of being mediocre, simply average, of blending in. I want to stand out. I want to be unique. I want to be GREAT. But I won't be. How can I? I've lost the key to greatness and all I'm left with is this emptiness. A shell of my former self. Who am I?