Positivity spreads starting with one person. Since I have started trying to see every situation positively, my attitude and motivation have greatly improved. I am motivated to solve problems when I choose not to think about what could go wrong. When the pandemic started all of the ski resorts closed, suddenly ending my ski season. With my ingenuity, I devised a way to ski. During my travels through the internet as a freestyle skier, I had seen these things called summer setups. A summer setup allows a person to ski without snow. Building a summer ski setup was my project during early lockdown. Because of my positivity, I was able to see the silver lining of lockdown. As the ski resorts shut down I had to be positive while also having the grit to build a ski setup.

Grit is what gets anyone through anything. Having grit in one aspect of my life carries over to others. I learned about the importance of grit as a little kid. I started wrestling in third grade. I had tough coaches. They did not care how old or small I was, they were going to shape me into a tough wrestler. It was the end of a brutal practice during my first season on the Winchester Wrestling Team. Kids had been quitting drills throughout practice, so my coach gave the team a talk about Grit. He told us about a book called Grit and how he needed grit in the Air Force. That talk has stayed with me. I learned that when I have grit and focus on my school work I am likely to have grit in sports practice. While focusing on grit I also focus on kindness.

Kindness is contagious. From experience, I have learned that kindness is a chain reaction. One small act of kindness can snowball into a much larger one. At Fenn, it is expected that when you see a teacher you greet them. One day in eighth grade I walked into my cohort room and said hello to Mr. Miklusak, my advisor. He asked me how I was doing because he could tell I was not having a good morning. I stayed up late the night before doing a ton of homework and procrastinating. It’s crazy to think that from just a simple greeting out of kindness a teacher could deduce so much about how I was doing.

Positivity, kindness, and grit are values that make a good human.

Sincerely,

Peter Remington

11/29/21