Undergraduate / "My father made a sacrifice" - Significant experience... [4]

Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.

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Growing up in a very lavish neighborhood made everything seem so easy and reachable. I was a very uncaring and irresponsible kid. I thought I had it all and that it would never end. My parents constantly tried to set boundaries, but I managed to persuade them to respond positively to all my requests. I was 12 years old when this lifestyle ceased. My father's business was not going very well, provoking many changes in our lives; like changing from the latest car models to older cars or spending summer vacations at home instead of traveling, but the most shocking change, that made me realize that things were not going to get better, was when we moved from our very spacious house to a more cramped one. All I could think about was what the future would bring. My parents did everything to bring food to the table; it was very hard.

When I was 14, my father had no other choice; he had to move to the Brazilian Amazon to continue working in the lumber industry. My mother decided that my siblings and I should stay with her in Paraguay to finish school. Every three months my father would come home and tell us about the places he had to visit and the people he had to deal with, they were surely not pleasant for him.

My father's constant hard work and stimulation to rise from the bottom inspired me to change. It made me realize that if I wanted something I had to work for it, not everything in life came in a golden platter. I knew that if I continued my reckless way of living I would not get far in life. I started to work harder at school for better grades. I stopped going out for any reason and instead stayed home to study or read books. Many of my friends were not happy with my sudden change, though I did not care. My father made a sacrifice and moved out; leaving my friends could not be as hard.

A few years later things started to get better. Everything slowly changed again, except for one thing: my new way of thinking. This experience taught me very important lessons. One of them is that if you want the rainbow, you have got to put up with the rain. More importantly, I have learned that you never know what challenges life can bring, and the only weapon to defeat them is readiness.