I once received the book The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho as a gift from a family friend. As I read The Alchemist, I came across a sentence that had a powerful effect on me and I decided to live my life. The sentence goes as follows; “The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.” I realized then that no matter what we go through, we, as our own individual, always have the choice to get back up and try again. The hardest struggle I have had to overcome is the overwhelming pressure that was put upon me by my family. My parents have always expected great things from me regarding school. Graduating with a 4.25 from middle school, they expected nothing lower than A’s in high school, which put a large amount of weight