As I swim around the world, the thing I primarily see is my pursuit of happiness. The things I notice in this world are the things that can improve who I am because to me, nothing is more important than my happiness. For the longest time I had severe depression, so I’ve now made my own happiness and maintaining that as the thing that matters to me. I notice the things that i care about and help my happiness (friends, events, socializing, alone time, hobbies, etc.). As I go through each day, I always have this inner monologue of how can the happiest I can possibly be today? I think because of this, it would be fair to say I don’t focus so much on long term success since I’m worrying so much about the now on a daily basis. On that point, I recall having a conversation with a friend back home about what matter most and he wants to be in a stable situation with money and feeling safe like that. I told him that the thing that matters most to me is just being happy over stability in life. That type of conversation made me see how other people have other things on the mind besides happiness and i found that fascinating because I saw this whole new point of view where sometimes safety and stability is more important than happiness. Because of that, I’ve realized that sometimes that swimming being surrounded by own happiness can sometimes make me ignore the other aspects of life that need to get done that don’t involve my own happiness. While it is a complex situation, I always find myself needing to be self aware of my mental state and self preservation. Definitely during these college years and added independence do I focus more on those things and making that what I surround myself with as I swim.