Aditya Shukla, Grade IX, Laurels International School
Change — it’s a word we hear so often, yet it keeps testing us in new ways. From ancient times till today, survival has always depended on how well we adapt. The same rule applies to us students too. Every exam, every challenge, every mistake we make quietly asks us one question: Will we just complain, or will we change?
Many of us keep wondering what’s the right way to deal with things when they don’t go as planned. Should we keep digging into what went wrong, or start working on how to make it right? It sounds simple, but it’s not.
Let’s think about it together.
When We Keep Looking at Problems
We’ve all had those days — we return home with a disappointing test result and sit there replaying every mistake. Thoughts pile up: I didn’t study properly, I waste time, I keep getting distracted. We make big promises to ourselves — from tomorrow, no phone, no TV, total focus.
But after a few days, the energy starts fading. We notice more and more flaws, and less and less progress. The harder we try to fix ourselves, the worse we feel. It’s as if every mirror we look into shows only the scratches.
When we focus only on what’s wrong, we stop seeing what’s working. Slowly, confidence slips away. Instead of growing, we get stuck. It’s like running on a treadmill — tired, but still in the same place.
When We Shift to Solutions
Let’s take a simple example. In our school’s annual art exhibition last year, one of our classmates, Riya, didn’t get selected the first time. Her sketches were neat, but the ideas lacked originality. Instead of giving up or overthinking, she started sketching every evening — sometimes copying ideas just to practice, sometimes creating her own. Over weeks, she built her own style. By the next exhibition, her painting wasn’t just selected — it was the highlight of the show.
When we spoke later, she said something that stuck: “The day I stopped proving myself and started improving myself, things began to change.”
That’s what focusing on solutions looks like. We stop blaming, we start building. We stop trying to be perfect, we start trying to be better.
Finding the Balance
Real change isn’t about ignoring problems or blindly chasing solutions. It’s about understanding where we went wrong — and then acting on it without guilt. Problems are like road signs; they show us the direction to take, but we still have to walk the road ourselves.
When we spend too much time blaming the past, we miss the chance to build the present. The moment we start acting, improvement quietly follows. It’s that meeting point — where awareness turns into action — that real change begins to grow.
A Thought to Leave With
Change doesn’t wait for perfect timing. It begins the moment we decide to move.
Every step we take — revising one extra chapter, choosing effort over excuses, believing once more when things go wrong — adds a small brick to the bridge between what we were and what we can become.
Problems test us. Solutions train us. But reflection transforms us.
So let’s not just chase change; let’s live it, together — one choice, one effort, one better day at a time.