Midnight Dreams

The following essay is something called a "This I Believe". Basically, it's an essay on a belief of yours. It can range from the color blue, to something as serious as death, wisdom, etc. My honors english class all wrote one. Here's mine.

Life Always Goes On
Everyone always has some sort of problem; some sort of looming issue, in the near or far future, endlessly worrying us. It might be serious or, quite frankly, a joke in retrospect, but we’ll always worry about it, regardless. That worry will just pick away at the worrier and eventually it’ll leave a shell filled with worry, and nothing but. Sometimes that issue will get blown way out of proportion, and then it only gets worse. It might get to the point where the person just gets overexcited, thinking that life will just “stop”. I believe the opposite, and in the words of Robert Frost, “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”
Many times in my own life I’ve worried incessantly about things, that I later regret worrying so much about. It's always what the consequence will be in that exact second; that exact moment of shame, sadness, whichever. I used to never really realize that there wouldn't be any largely long term consequences of most things, thus, no real reason to be so over-worried about things. Accidentally forgetting a homework assignment gets blown out of proportion by a lot of people, but it's only a point or two off most of the time if it's a day late; so why worry so much? Should you cheat on it? Is it worth getting caught, and not getting anything? Is it really worth losing sleep over? That is only a single example of how bad irrational worrying can be,and it's consequences that can actually affect you over the smaller, more harmless ones that can easily be rectified. . I find that doing all this worrying doesn't really help, at all. I'm not trying to say being worried about things is useless, it's that some issues aren't worth worrying so much about, especially if they can be later fixed, or avoidable.
I first started realizing this awhile ago, when I first learned my dad had a severe liver problem and could possibly even die. When you're 12 years old, this isn't something you want to hear. What ensued after learning this is something else entirely, but in the end of it all, I realized that there's a fairly sizable line between irrational and rational worry. After all, it's not every day you find out someone you love could die, and fairly soon as well. Spending 3 months halfway across the world, in a totally different lifestyle with a completely different mind-set and environment, some things just don't bother me anymore, not at all. I believe that there are things to worry about, and after hearing about my dad, things like homework, what reputation means, and other things similar to that suddenly don't seem as big and looming. I think that many people don't really think about what's really important, and what isn't, and thus, worry about the wrong things at the wrong times. Additionally, I believe that there are some things that are worth and not worth worrying about. To reiterate what I said before, after I've had something so big happen in my life, previous things I've seen suddenly aren't as important.
People move along too fast and never really take a bit of time to look at the larger picture. They forget what's important, and that the world won't end if everything doesn't go perfectly. Life goes on. Nothing short of death can stop that. So why worry about such unimportant things? I believe that there are both things worth and not worth worrying about, and that only the person himself can decide what's worth what.