BY Joe（周麟来） from 2302

Good morning, everyone. I'm Joe from 2302. Today, I’m not here to tell you how to live your life "the right way," bombard you with academic jargon, or just tick off another school task. I simply want to share one crucial truth: your mental health is far more important than you realize.

We’ve all become experts at sacrificing our well-being to meet expectations. Maybe you don’t go to the extremes I have, but how many of you push aside your emotions, act like grades don’t matter, then break down in private when things go wrong? All because you, like everyone else, feel pressured to be the perfect student. But let me tell you this—nothing is worth destroying your emotional well-being for.

Some people say that prioritizing mental health is just a sign of weakness. Take my friend, for example—always trying to please everyone, constantly over-explaining herself to rumors that no one even cares about. One day, her body physically trembled—not from stress-induced "waves of energy" but from sheer exhaustion. Her body spoke the words she couldn't: "I can’t take this anymore."

We’ve been trained to be excellent accountants—calculating physics formulas, UMS scores, and social credit while letting our psychological balance sink deeper into debt. We bottle up emotions, thinking that suppressing them is the key to some higher state of mind. Like the girl drowning in overwhelming feelings, hiding her brilliant logical mind behind her so-called "passion" for electrical engineering. She’s exhausted, confused, and questioning every choice she’s ever made.

Mental health isn’t about getting rid of emotions—it’s about giving them a healthy outlet. Channel your frustration into a powerful badminton smash. Turn sleepless anxiety into three hours of hyper-focused studying.

I learned this lesson the hard way. Last year, a week before my EPQ deadline, I had only written half of my essay. I felt completely drained, like I was about to collapse. So I gave up and slept for 10 hours. The next day, my tutor pulled me back in, and I kept going. And guess what? I survived. In those final three days, I finished my project. I got a B—not the best grade, but at least I completed it. If I had forced myself to push through when I was mentally exhausted, I doubt I would have even met the deadline.

Mental health isn’t a luxury—it’s your armor. When you start prioritizing it, incredible things happen. Once you cross that self-care threshold, your potential skyrockets. Not because you magically become smarter, but because you stop wasting energy fighting battles within yourself. This isn’t selfish—it’s the smartest investment you can make. Secure your well-being first, and you’ll have the strength to brighten the world around you.

I promised no academic talk, but I’ll leave you with this formula:

Your mental health > grades > social status > other people’s expectations > literally everything else.

And according to Joe’s First Law of Emotional Physics: only those with unbroken spirits achieve true success.