“It's not about the money, it's about sending a message”-Joker. I am Daniel Castelar, a 15 year old attending a well known school, but not known to many people. I've always characterized myself as a thinker, having quick decisions and being reasonable with them too. I've wanted to pursue the study of psychology, it has interested me the most and I want to know more about why/how the human mind works/behaves and as well as the body in stress inducing situations. My brother has been someone that makes me want to pursue this dream as he is someone that is indecisive in most contexts with questions about something that he would want, and I would not want to go under his influence of being indecisive. I want to be the complete opposite of that. Therefore, I'm more of a thinker that would want to influence others to attempt to understand why what seems a simple problem, is more complex than what it is.

Last year, when I was a freshman, I had my brother by my side, who was a senior, and I was able to rely on him whenever I needed help with anything. But now as I am a sophomore, I'm not able to have that type of help anymore because he went to college, and his job makes it so I don't have too much of a day with him. Because of that, I now have to figure out what I should do by myself and to think more critically about the situation(s) I would be in to have a positive result. And now not having my brother helping me as often, his absence helps me find my limits by myself, and as well as to push myself past those limits of understanding to make not only myself proud of doing so, but also hopefully making my brother proud too.

My interest in psychology has also made a part of who I am and it's also going to eventually show who I am going to be. I greatly believe that having an understanding about how the mind behaves in a stressful situation or just understanding how it behaves in general, can ultimately help me better connect or understand people that have relatively small problems that society wouldn't care too much about, because then I can have some level of empathy or think about how they would feel in that certain situation. The study of psycho\logy is something that pushes me to build some kind of connections that are necessary to connect with others to have a positive relationship.

In my future I'm going to have to make the best possible outcome in any situation that would require the least amount of attention/destruction, because at that point I would have acquired the necessary skills of critical thinking. And the importance of that is so I can be relied on by the right people. What is also in my future is to influence or show people to not be “afraid” of what society has normalized to not be major problems that are to not worry about or pay much attention to. And I believe that if we continue going in that direction we will regret it in the future, because then most of us would probably not want to try to resolve or talk about the small things because of the worry that they would be judged by it.

Overall, I am a thinker, thinking of positive outcomes for the very few. My pursuit of this dream is driving me into a direction I would have never thought of being able to go in because of thinking that my brother's habits would rub off on me. But now I know I have to become independent, and chase my dreams alone for as long as I can keep dreaming. I am going to continue going forward along this journey and help anyone I can along the way to my final resting spot, completing my journey and having fun doing so.