What person or persons in your life inspire you and how are you inspired?
Every now and again, I turn my head away from the glow of my computer screen, and my back will creak and groan as I sit up straight for the first time in hours. I will rub my eyes, glance up at the kitchen clock, and calculate the hours of sleep I will likely get... usually about 5, though sometimes 4 or even 3, and I think to myself, "Why am I doing this?"
Sometimes it is because I don't have a choice. It is something that will be graded. But other things are completely voluntary, like Relay for Life, Mock Trial, Interact, debates, and student government. It is in these late night musings, my exhausted, over-worked exasperation that I get a clear picture of what drives me, and it comes from a distant place in my life.
I come from a rocky childhood, which has taught me the futility of false judgment and prejudice.
My father is a habitual narcotic drug user. I grew up around a lot of violence and things I did not understand. When I was about eight years old, my mother had the means to leave and start a new life for my siblings and I, but by then, the community had tagged me, my mother, and my siblings, as white trash, good-for-nothing, and essentially, going nowhere.
As a young child, I didn't understand why people had made up their minds about me, based solely on the decisions made by my parents. I got straight A's and had the best strike-out record on the softball team, yet my friends' parents would still (barely) whisper to each other, "She'll never graduate," or, "She'll have a baby by the time she gets to high school." As I got older, and kept my grades at the top of my class, won class president, and kept opening more and more doors for myself, the talk stopped, but I never forgot all those people who judged me before they gave me a chance.
I realized that stereotypes and prejudice are such inaccurate tools people use against others, and they are a far too popular trend in our society. It is not fair, and it is not right to make up your mind about someone based on their appearance or where they come from. Every person, foreign or familiar, has their own traits to offer the world, but not everyone understands this, and for many, being judged holds them back.
So when I look up from my work at the end of a long, tiresome day, I remind myself that I have been given this experience for a reason. I am driven to put myself in leadership and speaking roles so that I can share what I have learned with others, so that prejudice can end. I am inspired everyday by the lessons I have learned. I have jobs to do and things to say, and I will not think of slowing down.
I hope that I will be one of the few who are given the opportunity to live abroad, so that I can gain insight and new perspective about the world. I hope that I can take the lessons I have learned to a new part of the world, and I hope the people I meet there will be able to change me as well, so that I can be inspired to do even more.
Every now and again, I turn my head away from the glow of my computer screen, and my back will creak and groan as I sit up straight for the first time in hours. I will rub my eyes, glance up at the kitchen clock, and calculate the hours of sleep I will likely get... usually about 5, though sometimes 4 or even 3, and I think to myself, "Why am I doing this?"
Sometimes it is because I don't have a choice. It is something that will be graded. But other things are completely voluntary, like Relay for Life, Mock Trial, Interact, debates, and student government. It is in these late night musings, my exhausted, over-worked exasperation that I get a clear picture of what drives me, and it comes from a distant place in my life.
I come from a rocky childhood, which has taught me the futility of false judgment and prejudice.
My father is a habitual narcotic drug user. I grew up around a lot of violence and things I did not understand. When I was about eight years old, my mother had the means to leave and start a new life for my siblings and I, but by then, the community had tagged me, my mother, and my siblings, as white trash, good-for-nothing, and essentially, going nowhere.
As a young child, I didn't understand why people had made up their minds about me, based solely on the decisions made by my parents. I got straight A's and had the best strike-out record on the softball team, yet my friends' parents would still (barely) whisper to each other, "She'll never graduate," or, "She'll have a baby by the time she gets to high school." As I got older, and kept my grades at the top of my class, won class president, and kept opening more and more doors for myself, the talk stopped, but I never forgot all those people who judged me before they gave me a chance.
I realized that stereotypes and prejudice are such inaccurate tools people use against others, and they are a far too popular trend in our society. It is not fair, and it is not right to make up your mind about someone based on their appearance or where they come from. Every person, foreign or familiar, has their own traits to offer the world, but not everyone understands this, and for many, being judged holds them back.
So when I look up from my work at the end of a long, tiresome day, I remind myself that I have been given this experience for a reason. I am driven to put myself in leadership and speaking roles so that I can share what I have learned with others, so that prejudice can end. I am inspired everyday by the lessons I have learned. I have jobs to do and things to say, and I will not think of slowing down.
I hope that I will be one of the few who are given the opportunity to live abroad, so that I can gain insight and new perspective about the world. I hope that I can take the lessons I have learned to a new part of the world, and I hope the people I meet there will be able to change me as well, so that I can be inspired to do even more.
