The Importance Of My Life

As an young boy you never really think about how your life can completely change forever. For me my childhood was filled with legos and beach days and eating all the junk food I could imagine. My young, sweet life was great. That’s it. Just great. I never really thought it would change into something that I would forever be stuck with. Something that would screw up my daily routine, my habits and hobbies, and most of all, my junk food. Type one Diabetes would attach its disgusting self to me and in my boyhood mind, ruin my life forever. I was just an eleven year old sixth grader. Too young to realize that my condition could change my life in a good way.

Happiness to me is the feeling freedom after finally being out of debt; to be able to focus on school instead of working 40+ hours a week. Happiness is proving all the people who doubt me and lack faith in the fact that I’m making it. Happiness is getting to buy some pants, and socks and not worry about not having enough money to eat for the next two weeks. Happiness is making a stranger smile; filling their empty bellies. Happiness for me is relief; a weight falling off my shoulders letting content and joy flow in through my body. Little things make me happy; the cigarette after a long shift at work, the full night of sleep, a shower after a fifteen hour day.

To say that life has been one of constant motion is accurate. I have grown up many different schools, neighborhoods, and with people from all sorts of backgrounds. My environments have created much of who I am today. Through these diverse communities my values and morals have evolved over time. The way a certain population can contribute to shaping someone’s identity is crucial to their growth. “…neuroscientists are now discovering that at the cognitive level all three abilities – memory, location, and narration – are intimately bound up.” (Self np)  He’s saying that place and story are key factors in one’s identity.

I believe anyone has the ability to change anyones mood. I believe one person can make me feel awful about myself. I believe one person has the power to fill me with joy, and laughter. I believe one person can ruin my day with just a couple awful words. I believe one person impacts another. At a young age I realized how much happiness one person brought me. When I was nine years old I then realized one person can also fill you with sadness.

We always tend to question ourselves as we reach adulthood- Am I going to be successful? Have I even changed since being a child? Am I really who I think I am? From the moment we entered the world to the day we die, there is a small portion of adolescence where we experience who we really are and what even makes us that way. Although, as a nineteen year old lady, I still have growing to do; I have made discoveries that really explain why I am the person I present myself to be and why others would agree. Today I define myself as being independent, honest, and a psychology major.

Student, businessman, outgoing, dedicated, creative, and willing are just a few things that set me apart from other kids. I don't find myself as being a normal person. There are people who lead others, who set trends, who do things first, who strive to better themselves no matter what it takes. Then there are the followers, those who follow the trends set by the leaders, those who will do anything to fit in and be “cool”. I like to classify myself as a leader.

Many experiences through my life have shaped me into the person I am today. Some of them are so insignificant I can't even place them, but others I will remember until I take my very last breath. I will never forget what happened to my family and I since the time my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer. Because my grandmother had cancer for a good portion of my childhood, I became very mature, gained a new respect for people, and I have developed a new outlook on life. My grandmothers diagnosis made her very special to me.

“There will always be a reason why you meet people. Either to change your life or theirs.” I believe that everyone comes into your life for a reason. It’s just our job to decide if it is a blessing or to teach us a lesson. My parents got divorced when I was only three years old and I was an only child, so when my dad and stepmom told me I was going to be an older sister at age eleven I wasn’t super excited. To be completely honest I was kind of upset and scared. I had always lived with my mom and only visited my dad every other weekend, so I figured I wouldn’t have to see her that much anyways which made it a little better. Having been an only child my whole life I had no idea what it would be like, especially since she would be so much younger than me.

Life for me has always been making mistakes and learning from them. I’ve always been open to different experiences in life but I do have some boundaries. I know that everyone’s life in this world is different than every other person. I have been really close to my mom my whole life. I talk to her for hours and share my feeling, and tell her how my day goes. Whenever I had a problem, I knew that my mom would fix it for me, and once I tell her about it everything is going to be okay. I perpetually respect my parents and want to appreciate them for they do for me. I am really lucky that I have parents. Now as I became a teenager, I continuously thought that I would never change, my life would never change, I will always stay the same.

When I was younger I did not know much about life and playing football. A lot of the people that my family and I met throughout my life are because of football and how much I loved to play it. When people get older they usually decide to move around what they want to do in life. The main idols that are in my life currently aren’t anyone; they remain no one because, I would like to see what I would become in life and see where life would take me. A quote that I always remember when doing everything in life is “Keep moving forward no matter what you are doing”.

Death is never easy. It is difficult for the families that have to face it and even more so for the person going through it. I have been a hospice volunteer for about a year now, and as one, I visit patients that are near their lives’ end and try to ease them and their family into a smooth and peaceful transition. Originally I did it with the thought of simply getting community service hours to fulfill medical school requirements, simply visiting the patients once a week for an hour. But every time I leave, I am left with the feeling that I could’ve done more. Therefore, I started to go more often and stayed longer with the patients each week, from once a week to three time a week, and from one hour to almost 3 hours each time. And each time I visit, I like to think that I have made their life just a little bit better. Throughout this year of serving, my patients have taught me a great deal. One of the things they have taught me is lifetime.

Life puts obstacles in our way, it’s up to us to get passed them. I think my biggest complaint is “That’s not fair” as my mom always tells me “Life’s not fair”. Life isn’t the greatest but it’s up to oneself to make the best out of it. I complain a lot about how unfair life is with me, I’ve had personal events happen that I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. I lost my grandpa when I was twelve, my grandma is in and out of the hospital for medical reasons. I grew up with my grandma and grandpa due to the fact my mom was always working or to busy too be around when I was younger. My older sister and I always fought and hated being around each other, I was bullied since the third grade for being “fatter” than everyone else. My father walked out of my life without caring. My father named his other child exactly like me knowing about me. Due to all these situations, I began to care less and less about life, my education, the ways it affected my family, and the way it would affect my future.

When I was a child, my mom would tell me that all of my prayers always came true, and I believed it. Anything that I asked for or could ever ask for would come to me. I had an amazing family who supported me, trustworthy friends, and my life seemed great. I would go to church every Sunday, as I stood in silence as I opened my heart to God and felt the thrill every time I opened my Bible in the morning before school. I believed that my life would continue to be as blissful as it was when I was a hopeful eight year old girl. I believed in God as a sort of magician who would grant my every wish and desire.

In life, we tend to try to please people and make them as happy as possible even though we sacrifice the things that truly make us happy. I, like many others in the world, have experienced many occasions where I have sacrificed my own happiness just to make other people happy, or just to see them smile a genuine smile. No one else can make you happy in your life. Intimate relationships and friendship will often offer temporary sanctuary from things like your fears, insecurities, and past experiences that weren’t particularly positive, but if we want to get over these things we must face them all alone.

Life is what you make of it and you only get one, so make it count.  Not everything gets handed to you, go out and grab it.  Make your life the best it possibly can be, go out and take chances and make opportunities rather than waiting around for them to happen.  The best things in life take time and patience, if you dream up the possibility for something great in your life to happen you gotta believe that it can happen, then go out and make it happen!  Achieve your goals by going out there into that big, wide, beautiful world and take the chances you get to make it worthwhile.