When I was in second grade, my mother started showing signs of transverse myelitis, a degenerative disease that caused her to be unable to eat, and wore her down until she looked like a skeleton. I bounced from house to house as my dad had to take care of my mom at the hospital, and I discovered how it truly felt to have someone slipping away from you. The smell of disinfectant, the shoddy lighting in hospital rooms, the nurses...

Don't choose an activity based on others; think...