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Blame it on puberty, hormones and growing pains, but as a teenager, I had a negative mindset. I had no concept of being realistic either. With a steady diet of grunge music, the cloud of teenage angst that enveloped me made it easy to fall into the negativity trap. It didn’t help that I was failing math half the time in secondary school. Physics and chemistry were a downer as well. Passing was only possible with the help of plenty of tuition. Meanwhile, I also had to deal with the usual life question: What did I want to do after graduating university? Beyond that was also the question that every teen grapples with: Identity. Who are you and how will you fulfil your potential? (Image: Gadiel Lazcano, Unsplash) The negativity trap I probably had a negative mindset for at least five years. Before I sat for math exams, I had to keep my anxiety in check while revising. Awaiting results was arguably even harder. So, I began to expect less, thinking that since the highest score I could hope for was passing, there was no point in aiming higher. When your outlook is coloured by negativity, life seems dull. My mum cajoled me to become an optimist, but adult advice seldom reaches the teenage mind. Inevitably, her cajoling became statements about me being a downer with my 'surly attitude'. At least I wasn’t getting a lecture about grunge music anymore, though. You could say I wallowed in negativity during this period. (Image: Zac Durant, Unsplash) With perspective comes clarity As I grew older and more self-aware, I realised that I was annoyed with my attitude. I was letting challenges get the better of me instead of the other way around. Being weak in math isn’t the end of the world. I began to view this and other challenges as something I could beat. Of course, at the back of my mind, that irritating voice telling me to 'stop trying to hard' would sometimes attempt to sway my thinking. Self-pity is easy. Rising to challenges is harder. But I wanted to be better. Not for anyone else, but for myself. I started to view things realistically, and doing that pulled me out of teenage angst. Realistically, no matter how much I detest exams, they will still take place. In the bigger picture: No matter what, the world will still turn. The sun will still rise and set. It's what I choose to do and how I choose to tackle things that really matters. Coinciding with this is that my mind finally matured enough to take in all those math lessons. I shockingly started to enjoy it. In uni, I used a graphing calculator with ease. Suddenly, everything started to make sense. For two weeks, I even considered majoring in math. (Image: Steven Lelham, Unsplash) I didn't suddenly become academically inclined. But I had a clearer perspective and greater self-awareness. Pessimists will insist that you can't control your future because someone else is pulling the levers. Well, my view is that no matter where you live, someone else will still be pulling the levers. You could be a boss at work, but maybe not at home. And even if you had it all, well, you can't control the weather or when the sun rises or sets. You can't control time either. But you're in charge of your attitude. Teenage angst and negativity are in the past, so I seldom listen to grunge music. But when I do, it's like listening to oldies: It's the ideal soundtrack when reminiscing about how life was before we grew up. – Jeremy (Main image: Kyle Loftus, Unsplash)

Gerhard Berger has backed Michael Schumacher amid a climate of continuing criticism of the seven time world champion's performance so far in 2010. Four races into 41-year-old Schumacher's F1 comeback at the wheel of a Mercedes, the critique of pundits has ranged from a verdict of disappointment to a harsh denigration of his skills after three years of retirement. "I find all the talk about Michael a bit tedious, because it is always with a negative slant," 10-time GP winner Berger, who raced in Schumacher's era until retiring in 1997, said on Austrian TV 'Sport und Talk aus dem Hangar 7'. "Michael has come back and is doing what he wants. I think you cannot change the status of someone who is a seven time world champion," added the 50-year-old former Ferrari and McLaren driver. Austrian Berger backs Schumacher to improve his pace in the forthcoming races. "We know his ambition. We know that if he does something, he does it right. I think we must take him seriously again in the future," he said. After the initial three races of 2010, Berger admits that Schumacher's performance in China was a setback. "It was weak, but that can happen," said the former teammate of the late F1 great Ayrton Senna. "I think he has done an excellent job so far -- except for the last race. In the first three grands prix he was in the top six of the championship. That is a great achievement," added Berger. Also defending Schumacher is his countryman and friend Sebastian Vettel, who until the great German's struggle in 2010 was nicknamed by the German press 'Baby-Schumi'. "He is yet to exhaust the potential of his car and will therefore get better from a driving point of view from race to race," the Red Bull driver told Switzerland's Motorsport Aktuell. "I wouldn't write him off for a long time," added 22-year-old Vettel. Force India's Adrian Sutil also sees nothing odd about Schumacher's comeback to date. "I had counted on it being difficult for him. Formula one has changed to the extremes in the past few years so that you can lose half a second and not know exactly why," he told spox.com. "Plus it would have been funny if Schumacher had beaten us all after three years of being retired -- then he really would have been the god of F1. "That doesn't mean he's doing badly; on the contrary, he's always in the top ten. He only needs time," added Sutil. Source: GMM