Mountaineer Places in Optimist Essay Contest

The Clarkston Optimist Club recently held their 2022 essay contest. This year's topic was "How Does an Optimistic Mindset Change My Tomorrow?” The essay contest was announced to Mountaineers, and senior Molly Burgess submitted her essay and won third place. Winners were invited to the Optimist Club meeting on Wednesday, March 16, to read their essays. Molly's essay will advance to the district competition.

Molly concluded her essay, which reflected on her personal struggles and challenges in finding hope and optimism over the past several years, with these thoughts:

"A common misconception regarding an optimistic mindset is that it makes people naïve. However, this is an inaccurate assumption. From the train tracks up onto solid ground, I can say I have seen substantial change in my life once I regained hope. Optimism is not expecting things

to turn out well, but knowing that I will persevere if they don’t. This is also something I know to be true through my dark experiences. As someone who is fascinated by art, I recently wrote, 'Life is not meant to be a paint-by-numbers, always having knowledge of the next color and

effortlessly staying within the lines. The uncertainty is most definitely scary but can also be beautiful if you stick around to give it the opportunity. The most breathtaking art pieces are messy and chaotic.' In choosing to reinterpret the concept of feeling lost, my mind has developed contentment in the uncertainty of tomorrow. Through my developing optimism, I can now say that I am ready to go out into the world creating my own messy and chaotic artwork titled 'Life.'"