Thank you for your site, I like it. When I was little I went on the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland and I got really scared of it and wouldn’t go on it ever again. So, when I got older I wanted to not be scared of it anymore, so I watched ridethroughs on Youtube and looked at websites that tell about all the details of the rooms in the haunted mansion. Now that I understand what is actually in the ride, I am not afraid of the ride anymore, it really helped me. So, now I try , when I am scared of something, to learn more about it.

I was thinking about your page where you are talking about steps and setting goals. And I remembered this thing that I did and I wasn’t sure if it was what you meant by “focusing on the positive”.

When I was little I overheard two of my friends backstabbing me, they were actually saying how fun it would be to hurt me! Ever since then, I set a goal to try to say nice things about people and to go away when I hear anyone backstabbing somebody. This helped me a lot a little while ago when a girl was talking to me and telling me all this stupid stuff she had heard about one of my other friends. I told her I didn’t want to talk about that anymore and left. It was really good I did that because it turns out that she was just making it up to see if she could get me to stop talking to the other friend.

That is a good example of trying to set positive goals! And it is good you stopped her so it didn’t seem to her that you were okay with what she was saying. Sometimes, when you don’t say anything, people will think you are on “their side” and that you agree with whatever they say. – SMW

One thing I do at school to see if someone is nice or not, is that I go up to
them and put my arm around their shoulders and say, “Hi! How are you
doing?” in a really friendly way. If they glare at me and push me away,
then they are jerks and if they are friendly back, they are nice.

That’s a good idea, you are obviously trying very hard to understand people and how to interact well with them. You may want to be careful to watch out for people who might be looking to try to take advantage of someone, as they might “act” nice but try to use/harm you. Good luck!!! – SMW

A while ago I used to get really embarrassed when my friends came over
because my brother didn’t clean his part of our room, so I started doing it
for him. But he just started getting more lazy and asking me to do his other
chores! I stopped cleaning his part of the room after that. So I totally know
what you are talking about when you say to not take responsibility for other
people.

It is good thing to want to help others, but if you feel like they are just trying to take
advantage of you, that is disappointing. Sounds like you understand the point! Thanks for
writing! – SMW

Please send us any stories where you have been the hero in your own life at savingmyworld@gmail.com