Sara had always considered herself to be an optimist. She looks forward to each new day as a new beginning. And an opportunity to do better than she had the day before. She is one of those people who always see the light at the end of the tunnel. Each morning when she wakes up, she looks out her bedroom window, and rain or shine, she is happy that she has the opportunity to begin a new day.

When Sara hits any roadblocks in her life, she finds a way around it and believes she was better for having overcome them. Her confidence in herself grew and grew. She had always been an independent person who prided herself on her ability to create her own success and not rely on other people.

Sara is a person with a big heart, and she is always willing to lend a helping hand to anyone who needs it. Sara has always set goals for herself from the time she was a little girl playing hopscotch on the sidewalk in front of her house. She wouldn’t give up until she hopped all the way to the end of the hopscotch and back again without touching her other foot to the ground. And when she succeeded, she would smile from ear to ear and jump up and down. Her girlfriends always laughed at her for getting so excited over a game of hopscotch.

As Sara grew up, she set higher and higher goals for herself. She always wanted to have the highest grade point average in her class, and she was the president of her class all through eight years of grade school and four years of high school. She was the valedictorian of her senior year in high school at graduation. And she was accepted into every college she applied to during her senior year. She decided that she would only attend the best university in the USA. She was accepted at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. She decided on Princeton University since it had the highest rating of all the universities in America. She was offered a full scholarship.

Sara had a lot of girlfriends but hadn’t dated at all during high school since she felt her education was more important than dating, which she considered to be a waste of her time. She had no plans to get married any time soon, if at all. Her parents had divorced when she was in the third grade, and her memories of the time before that were of her parents arguing and disagreeing with each other all day and night. She had no desire to replicate that experience in her own life.

Her Freshman year at Princeton was challenging, to say the least. Princeton had a beautiful campus, and only the cream of the crop was accepted as students who would be expected to direct all their energy and time to their studies which were a preparation for their future. Sara had planned on her future being driven by her desire to make new strides in Biological Research. Sara believed that biological research helps us understand all of the living world and its many species, including humans, to function and evolve. And ultimately will advance improvements in medicine, biotechnology, and many other areas of biology, which will improve the quality of life for all the life on our planet.

During her third year at the university, Sara had to declare her major. This was always a stressful time for students since it was not unknown for students to be conflicted by their many interests, and picking one major was a kind of litmus test to see which students had evolved enough in their years at the university to make adult decisions about their future lives. And how they wanted to use that time. Sara had always known what she wanted to do with her life. But still, because of the high pressure, Sara found herself questioning her choice to the point that she was having difficulty falling asleep in the few hours of sleep that she allowed herself. And in addition, she found her appetite had decreased to the point that between little rest and poor appetite, she had lost considerable weight and energy.

Finally, one of her friends at the university stopped by Sara’s door room and ask if she could take a few minutes out of her studies for a short discussion. Sara looked at her friend and thought that she must be having some boyfriend issues. Sara had no experience with boyfriends since she didn’t date and had no desire to waste her time on the drama of young love that she saw all around her at the university. When her friend, Miriam, ask her if she could come in, Sara sighed and said, “Well, just for a little while. I just started doing the research on my thesis, Miriam.”

“Well, you are probably not going to like what I have to say, but here goes. I and the rest of your friends are concerned with your well-being. You don’t get much sleep, you never do anything that is fun or relaxing, but most of all, you are concerned about how much weight you have lost. Are you eating at all? Have you developed some sort of eating disorder? You know that the university has people that can address issues like this. What do you say? How about we go set up an appointment and see if there is a real problem or you just not getting enough sleep and not eating regularly?”

“What, I don’t have an eating disorder; I’m busy. I have a lot of work and research to do in a short amount of time. I supposed I do forget to eat occasionally. But it’s not a big deal. I’m young, and I will rebound, and in time I will finish my studies and move on to the real working world. Which I’m sure will be even more challenging than going to university, don’t you think?”

Miriam responded,” Could you please just stand up next to me and look in the mirror? If you remember, we were both about the same weight and height when we arrived here on campus three years ago. So, would you please come to look in the mirror?”

Sara hemmed and hawed for a moment, and then she said, “Alright, but this better not take too long. I have a great deal of work to do. And then she walked over to the mirror and stood next to Miriam, and looked into the mirror. They both looked in the mirror and then at each other. And Miriam said, “Well, how do you think you look?”

“Well, if I were, to be honest, I’d have to say that I do look somewhat thinner. But that’s not surprising; I have been working night and day. And so do most of the students here that wish to excel in their studies. Their futures depend upon it. “

“Do you notice your clothes are hanging off of you? How about how thing your face is compared to mine? Your clothes are falling off of you. You don’t eat much, you rarely sleep. How do you expect to excel at anything when you’re starving yourself and not sleeping at all? And you work night and day. You never take a break, ever.”

“Yes, I can see I lost some weight, and we are all tired. But, we are working towards our futures, and that takes time and lots and lots of effort, sometimes going without sleep.”
“Yes, but how far are you going to get if you are starving yourself and not sleeping? Shouldn’t your health and well-being be the number one priority?”

“Yes, but sometimes I just don’t have enough time to think about eating and sleeping.”
“How about if you make a compromise? How about if every morning you come down to the cafeteria with me and eat a light breakfast, and then at dinner time, we go down and eat dinner together? Maybe once in a great while, we can splurge and go out for pizza or something. What do you say?”
“Breakfast and dinner too, oh come on, that’s too much. And then Sara began to laugh. “OK, OK, breakfast and dinner, and once in a great while, go out for pizza. But that’s it.”

“Awesome, let’s celebrate by going out for that pizza right now. What do you say?”

“ I say, I’m slammed but OK, but then I have to come right back here and get busy working on my research paper, deal?”

“Yes, deal, so throw on some shoes, grab your purse, and let’s get that pizza with all the toppings. What do you say, Sara?”

“OK, let’s hit the road and get a pizza. I can almost taste it right now.”

“Me, too. Let’s hit the road.”

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