He’s sure to make his hair lie even, slightly over his eyebrows where the view of his eyes are vivid, but not clear enough to really read who he is as a person in and out of the classroom as well as on and off the field and court. Adan Nevarez, a grade 10 student athlete at West Leyden who sees the best in high school while also fighting the battles of over-achieving. Adan makes sure to be just as any 16 year old boy while also putting school first. He says, “I make sure to take time out of my day to you know do my work. It gets tiring after you know sports and stuff.” He explains how important it really is to keep his grades while managing enough time for sports and a social life. “I like to make sure, you know, before I go to bed, before I do anything, I want to get home to do my work, or stay after school if I have to. Even if it means I’m late to my sports, because if you don’t have good grades, then you can’t play. So I want to make sure I’m on top of my grades all the time, because I know I want to play. So I make sure I move time out of my schedule too. As with being a highschooler as well I understand how stressful it could be to keep up with grades but it is most definitely possible with a mindset as strong as his. Adan responds to my question “What would you say to someone who is trying to gain this mindset” and says “I think, think about where you want to be in the future, or think about where you want to be with what you’re doing. If you want to be great, you know, you just got to put your mind to it. You got to put in the work. You can’t be great without putting effort in, you know. So if you’re not putting that effort in, you’re not going to be good.” Adan is not only setting up the path for success in the future but using high school to its full extent. “I think when my parents set these high expectations for me, i sometimes get overwhelmed and feel like they’re too high, and i start to be like oh but you didn’t have this for my brother, you know like why for me? Like its, you know but i started to learn that its just because my mom knows what im capable of, right. She knows I can do alot.” Trying to achieve your own expectations is already difficult but trying to achieve someone else’s is even more overwhelming. Balancing out stress in scenarios like this is a crucial skill, and to have it as a sophomore, it couldn’t be any better. “You know, I want to be the best I can. And I think that, I mean, it could be for anything, you know. The middle the oldest whatever yeah, but i think definitely the youngest, you want to be better than your elders.” For adan, being better than his elders is like a defense mechanism, they might be older but not better. It inspires his daily life, why he does what he does. “I think that’s more just how I am as a person. I always wanted to be better than everybody. Okay, it’s always been like that. You know, I’ve always and I’ve always been, like, good at sports, so I feel like I’ve always had that mindset of being the best” It’s true, a mindset will be the first to set up your future and with that, a good future is guaranteed.