People constantly focus on material possessions and winning as the most important partsof life, vowing to enjoy life as much as possible. How often is the message"Life is too short not to live a little" thrown in our faces by themedia, profiteers only inteested in making a buck? It's easy to buy into thisphilosophy, but once one has forgotten what really matters, it usually takes somedrastic action to stir the memory.

My high school, like many others, isextremely competitive not only in sports but also in academics. The stress oftrying to get excellent grades while participating in extra-curricular activitiescan be overwhelming. Sometimes it seems like I live at school! When I am home mytime is spent doing homework. Some days I am so busy finishing a project that Ibarely see my family. This all became apparent last year.

I have a youngerbrother and sister. My sister is nine years old, seven years my junior. We usedto see a lot of each other, but after I graduated from the grade school sheattends, I saw less and less of her. I tried to go to her gymnastic meets andsoccer games but had my own play rehearsals and meetings.

Then one day Icame home to an empty house and found a note from my mom. She was at my brother'sbaseball game, and my sister was at her friend's and would be droppedoff.

At five o'clock I went to turn on the light on the front porch andsaw my sister walking toward the door with her friend and her friend's father. Iheard them talking.

"Is anyone home?" the father asked.

"Just my mean big sister, and she's probably in her room asalways," my sister replied. I couldn't believe it. I didn't even know thisman and my sister was making me sound like one of Cinderella's wickedstepsisters. I opened the door, thanked the father for bringing her home, shutthe door and started to cry.

To make a long story short, a huge fightfollowed that ended with me banishing my sister to her room until my mom gothome. When she arrived, I told her what had happened, and I realized that whatwas worse than the fight was that I really hadn't been a good big sister.

I had lost track of what was important, what really mattered. I had been suckedinto a whirlpool of stress and competition, and it took my sister's honestobservation to show me that the grades I got didn't matter to everyone -certainly not to her. All that matters to her is that I'm her big sister, andthat's what matters to me, too