Seek MORE with Xavier Cruz
- MORE Editors
- 7 days ago
- 4 min read
This Summer, we will be highlighting our five lovely interns, who are part of the MORE Magazine team. Seek MORE by reading their stories on who they are
and why they chose MORE Magazine.
Xavier has been with MORE for multiple semesters, serving as our Media Intern. Read more to learn about how he has grown in his role at MORE Magazine.
My name is Xavier Cruz, and I’m a recent graduate from Western High School (woohoo!). I’m again interning with MORE Magazine during my last summer before college at Purdue Fort Wayne, where I will be majoring in Electrical Engineering with (hopefully) a minor in Japanese. Previously, my original article focused on the simple phrase: “You can't live in your comfort zone forever.” It’s a great message anyone might be able to appreciate, but I want to expand on this message.
I want to focus on the first step of leaving your comfort zone, which involves leaving the familiar and the known. This first step is quite mundane, but that doesn’t make it any less important. The first step to leaving your comfort zone is the small act of trying. Anyone can want anything, like me wanting to go to the gym and get an actual workout done. But a thought without any action is just an idea rattling inside one’s head. The act of trying is what gets the wheel turning, what makes the thought something more. Of course, sometimes it’s hard to try, to push yourself to do that thing; that’s completely normal. To get over whatever that obstacle is holding us back, sometimes you need help, other times you just need to look at it from a different perspective; there are various ways to overcome it. It’s just that when you finally do, finally try, it has more meaning than what’s contained in its action.
It’s the first step, a small victory that sets everything else in motion, whatever that may be. It’s more than just “you did it,” it’s “you can do it,” it’s a trophy symbolizing your effort. Trying and succeeding are not only proof of your ambition, but they're proof that whatever you want to achieve can be within reach and not just some far-off goal. Even if you try and fail, you still gain something, whether that be information, insight, or something else.
Failure does not have to be strange or weird. It can be the world’s greatest teacher for any of us to meet. The thing about failure is not just about learning a lesson; it’s about learning the right lesson from your failure. There’s also the fact that you’re not alone in your efforts, and you don’t have to be alone. Humans are social creatures by nature, which is to say that we like interacting with each other a lot, so don’t try to shoulder everything on your own.
While taking the first step is hard, people are usually happy to help, and even if they aren’t, people upload guides and explanations on the internet specifically to help others. Experiencing what life has to offer starts with getting out of your comfort zone, and the first step of getting out of the familiar is taking the leap of faith and putting your foot forward.
My name is Xavier Cruz, and I’m a senior in high school, and I'm getting ready to go to college. I’ve been admitted to Purdue University Fort Wayne and will major in Mechanical Engineering, or Electrical Engineering. I joined MORE in the second semester of my sophomore year, so it’s easy to say that it has had an impact on me. What I do for MORE as an intern is edit audio, and sometimes videos, for their social media.
As I went through my sophomore year and all of my junior year, the articles and interviews I’ve worked on have helped me grow myself and expand my perspective. Looking back on it, what it means to Seek MORE for me can be boiled down to a single core belief: “You cannot forever live in your comfort zone.” It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that MORE is what got me to interact with people. Before joining MORE I strayed away from conversations and people, only talking to people I knew beforehand. Now I am vice president of my school’s Japanese club and heading out to Japan in the summer of 2025.
To put it plainly, the old me would not believe that I could regularly talk to classmates in the future. Now that I socialize, I don’t ever want to go back to my old, quiet self. I’ve made friends with people I thought I would never talk to. This extends outside of school as well. The dread I felt at the very thought of driving made me afraid to get behind the wheel. Now, I drive while wondering what I was so afraid of. I previously would have laughed at the idea of going to the gym due to my lack of confidence. Now I can go without a care in the world, focused on a goal to better my health.
MORE has taught me that the comfort zone, as its name implies, is comfortable, and one could never really grow and learn by staying inside of it. As I prepare for the transition of the end of high school and into the beginning of college, MORE helps me remember what’s important. The fact that there are people who genuinely care for me. That it’s never always ‘you against the world,’ you just need to ask for help from those around you. That the only opinions that matter to you are the ones that you say matter. That, by the end of the day, shooting for the moon with everything you have will guarantee you a wonderful view.
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