Student Essay: Chasing 
Optimism in the Face of Challenges 3 of 3
(Ze’jhaun Moore, March 24, 2017)
There are many examples of people having hope when things seem like they might not go that way everyone wants some too. There’s always that person who still has hope that everything will turn out all right in the end, and usually ends up being right. Even if those things don’t turn out perfectly, that person remains optimistic in the face of challenges.
My mom graduated from high school, but didn’t go to college. Later, down the road, she figured out that she couldn’t get as many jobs as she thought she would. She knew that if she 
at least didn’t try to get on the right track and it would be hard for her to find the right job.
When she went back to college, she couldn’t stay in there long because she eventually moved. However those years she attended in school helped a lot. She was able to find jobs more quickly, and got accepted into jobs faster. She will most likely go back in a couple of years.
Not only did my mom have hope once, but twice. Four years before she went back to college, we stayed in Grand Rapids. My mom went to a cosmetology center. She took the first test and failed. She was going to quit altogether but feeling the first test didn’t stop her. Yet she didn’t give up so easily. My mom waited a few more months, and she decided to take the test again.
This time it was a way different ballgame, because she was in a way different ballpark. Her mind was set on the ball. It was like there was nothing else to focus on. She studied, and 
study, and studied. Finally she took the test again, this time with a lot more knowledge instead of jumping in blindly. This time, she was ready instead of being unprepared. This time, she took the test and aced it.
This is how she began hairstyling and cutting hair for another 10 years. She burst out with tears of joy when she called my grandmother. A couple of months after getting her career, a man started giving her trouble at work. This time when my mom called my grandma, she wasn’t crying tears of joy. She explained that the man kept saying he wasn’t going to promote her.
She thought about how far should come with being successful. And how she couldn’t just stop and drop what she was trying to accomplish because that one person had said something.
My grandma heat at school. But she knew if she didn’t go to school she would become a nurse. 
One of her teachers told her that she would never be successful. In her mind, she was thinking “watch me become successful “. My grandma graduated from that school with a diploma in her hand. Despite what the teacher said, my grandma had remain optimistic.
Another example of facing a challenge with app optimism is my Uncle Busch. He is a two-time cancer survivor. During his time battling with cancer, he never lost faith in whether the procedures would work or not. The majority of people in his old neighborhood or diagnosed with some form of cancer. The first time he was diagnosed with cancer and the doctors took some of his sack surrounding his heart.
Ever since then he’s been going back to the hospital for reasons like coughing, respiratory, and heart problems. Every time he would go in, they weren’t being really helpful at all. So my Uncle Busch took it upon himself to do some research on cancer and heart problems. Now, 
even today, he still buying products and pills and vitamins.
He refuses to just sit there and let the tumor grow bigger and bigger each day. Ever since he did that research and started his own different vitamins his tumor has been getting smaller. He decided to be optimistic in the face of challenges, and was rewarded with his life.
Those are three people who I know that I’ve stood tall when things have gotten to their worst. Those are all people remind me to stay positive.
I’m pretty sure everything I’m going through they haven’t already been through it. If they went that far with hope, then so can I. I’m pretty positive, but they’re the ones remind me of what staying positive looks like in action. They’re the ones you show me my chasing after him in the 
face of challenges is worth it.
Moore is an 11 year old who attends Thompson K-8 International Academy in Southfield.
Optimist International hosts a contest each year to award scholarships for young people. Participants enter through their local Optimist Club and winning entries advance regionally. State Representative Jeremy Moss presented certificates to the top three finalists in February. The Optimist Club of Southfield-Lathrup has shared their top three essays to help inspire Oakland County Times readers. Here is the second in this series. Learn more about the group at http://www.optimist.org/ClubDetail.cfm?club=17005
For the first essay see: https://oaklandcounty115.com/2017/03/03/student-essay-chasing-optimism-in-the-face-of-challenges-1-of-3/
For the second essay see: https://oaklandcounty115.com/2017/03/09/student-essay-chasing-optimism-in-the-face-of-challenges-2-of-3/
