Welcome to my Capstone project website, where I will be sharing with you something I am greatly passionate about. You will be given my driving question that began this project and my background with this topic that was the reasoning for my inspiration as well as my research journey and the important things that I learned which I promise will be of some sort of significance within your own life.
My driving question
So where do you place your worth?
I chose this as my driving question because due to personal experiences I came to realize that when we as humans consistently place our worth and value into things of this world, such as athletics, academics, substances, relationships, etc., we are often left feeling empty and unsure of who we are and why we are even in existence.
I chose this as my driving question because due to personal experiences I came to realize that when we as humans consistently place our worth and value into things of this world, such as athletics, academics, substances, relationships, etc., we are often left feeling empty and unsure of who we are and why we are even in existence.
My history
I can say from how I felt the summer between Junior and Senior year that when I placed my worth into worldly things and did not fall back onto Jesus I was completely lost. It was as if my brain was always working against me and never for me, which you can believe was difficult when you cannot even get along with your own conscience. I had completely stopped taking care of myself. My diet was off balance and I had no motivation anymore. All I wanted to do was sleep and be completely consumed with social media and television. These were the moments where I felt like I could escape the torment of my own thoughts telling me that I would never be good enough for anything, not my family, not my sports, not my friends, not college, and most definitely not my God.
Even though sleeping helped me escape, the night time was often the hardest when I was trying to fall asleep. I would lay there and listen to the lies I was telling myself until I would push myself to the point of crying and inability to breathe, and then eventually to the point of numbness where my brain had made me believe that this is the way it is so there is not point to even feel sorry for myself. I also isolated myself a lot of the time. I would just go into my room and shut the door and sit there with my anxiety, depression and my demons. Constantly thinking of all the mistakes I had made and how I was not in control of anything in my own life, and how I had failed time and time again to be successful at just about anything. This kept up until I eventually hit my breaking point.
The other way I have seen this occur, is in the lives of my close family and friends. Some stories are too personal to share, but I would watch as the people I loved would place their worth in what the world had to offer them and it sent them into a downward spiral of hating themselves and abusing alcohol and drugs just to numb the pain, as well as harming themselves. On a less serious note, I would just observe how teammates and friends would beat themselves up when they were not performing athletically or academically as well as they wanted to. It is hard to see the people you care about let something so small define their entire being and existence.
Even though sleeping helped me escape, the night time was often the hardest when I was trying to fall asleep. I would lay there and listen to the lies I was telling myself until I would push myself to the point of crying and inability to breathe, and then eventually to the point of numbness where my brain had made me believe that this is the way it is so there is not point to even feel sorry for myself. I also isolated myself a lot of the time. I would just go into my room and shut the door and sit there with my anxiety, depression and my demons. Constantly thinking of all the mistakes I had made and how I was not in control of anything in my own life, and how I had failed time and time again to be successful at just about anything. This kept up until I eventually hit my breaking point.
The other way I have seen this occur, is in the lives of my close family and friends. Some stories are too personal to share, but I would watch as the people I loved would place their worth in what the world had to offer them and it sent them into a downward spiral of hating themselves and abusing alcohol and drugs just to numb the pain, as well as harming themselves. On a less serious note, I would just observe how teammates and friends would beat themselves up when they were not performing athletically or academically as well as they wanted to. It is hard to see the people you care about let something so small define their entire being and existence.
My vision
Because of my history with this topic I have been able to cope with my worth and value through my identity in Christ and I hope that I can help others realize just how valuable they are. I am not perfect and often still find myself doubting if I am worth it, but I am hopeful that I will be able to touch the hearts and minds of those who feel alone in this. By doing this I hope to reach you by telling you how much you are worth and that believing anything other than the truth will produce harm and keep you from fulfilling excellence and your greatest potential in this life. My other goal with this project is to create a new era of confidence within our generation that will then be passed down to more generations to come and push our society to be confident in our worth so that we may begin to live the lives that God has in store for us, lives of hope, prosperity, and joy. I firmly believe that if we can place our worth outside of worldly concepts that we will be more firm in our beliefs and decisions when it comes to resisting conformity and temptations.