In some ways, to know oneself is very similar to knowing another. We may recognize traits in ourselves as readily as we recognize them in others. Also, we may choicely overlook things in ourselves we don’t like. However, one knows oneself in ways much deeper than seen by others. There is more to a person than character traits, of course. Everyone has things they tell no one else. Insecurities and ambitions are often things about a person that only that person knows himself. People need to understand their own strengths and weaknesses. They need to know what motivates them and what affects them. To know oneself is important so we don’t wander through life wondering how is it that we have screwed up yet again. A person’s understanding of their own self is more valuable than a relationship with any other person. I know that I am the only person who will be in my life forever, so it is probably best that I know myself.
My worst quality, in my eyes, that causes me trouble time and time again, is my horrible habit of procrastination. I am pretty sure that it is some sort of awful character defect that I cannot motivate myself. For example, homework is pretty important. Then again, to me, when I get home from school, naps are much, much more important than homework, grades, and my future. Of course, I can put a lovely spin on it and say, “I live in the present.” However, I tend to neglect even the immediate future. I seldom start homework before 9pm, and when I get to bed before midnight, that is excitingly early. My grades have certainly not been bad, but for that I am very lucky. I don’t really know how I have managed to still do so well in school when I feel like I am putting in very little effort. I do, however, always put very much effort into assignments for Humanities, of course. I cannot see this procrastination habit getting any better this academic year, at least. When I have scary teachers, I always study for quizzes. I do this because I am scared of them and what kinds of looks they will give me if I do poorly. However, if I have a very nice, laidback teacher, I will feel much more comfortable going to bed instead of studying for their quiz than I would feel doing so for the quiz of an aforementioned scary teacher. I really just need someone else pushing me. I have been sliding since sophomore year, really, but I have a feeling senior slide is even worse. I really haven’t done anything to combat this weakness. I suppose that procrastination is really just part of the fact that I am a horribly unmotivated person. Therefore, I am thoroughly unmotivated to do anything to motivate myself. Oh well; I have managed to do well enough, regardless.
Luckily, a strength that fits nicely with my weakness is that I am quite imperturbable. Even if I do get a bad grade, it doesn’t really faze me, personally. I just don’t like awkward situations with teachers. I realize in the long run, these little things don’t matter. This attitude of mine has become more pronounced in recent years. Last year, I thought I had down the Shakespeare soliloquy that I was to recite to my English class. However, once I began to recite, it became apparent that I was not nearly well-practiced enough. I did my best and had some prompting by the teacher. Overall, it was an awful performance. I realize that most people would have been mortified. I really didn’t care. Not much can embarrass me anymore. I don’t know why, but my imperturbability really does come in handy. I remain a pretty happy person.
Reflecting on what I have written, if I were not so imperturbable, I might want to rethink my ideas. I realize I have made it sound as if I am a slacker and don’t really care. Most people will probably give a weakness that really is a strength, like being a perfectionist or always needing to finish something they start. I’m pretty sure I have managed to spin my strength into another personality flaw. Maybe it is easier for me to write about my weaknesses than my strengths. My friends would say that I brag all the time, but really, I only do that jokingly because I know they expect me to. If someone says “You’re so stupid,” I won’t hesitate to respond, “Welllll, I am a National Merit Semifinalist!” Michaela will appreciate my mentioning that. However, when it comes to serious stuff, I don’t like to talk about how smart I am or anything like that. However, I really do consider it a strength that nothing fazes me. I can appreciate an awkward situation, certainly. The thing is, my imperturbability has saved me much embarrassment, and for that, I am grateful.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Advice
I received some particularly good advice as I was sitting in a lawn chair this past summer at my neighbor’s annual Memorial Day party, chatting with another neighbor whom I’ve known since I was young. It is hard to explain, but we are close with all our neighbors. The dads borrow tools and help each other with various projects, the moms really borrow eggs and sugar, and the kids all play together. We actually have a block party every September, to which over one hundred neighbors come each year. I am lucky to live in such a neighborhood. In short, this neighbor to whom I was speaking was not a woman I barely know and was just making polite conversation with. Looking back, I was basically on the receiving end of a lecture. I’m not sure what I said in response to anything she said, so it is hard to recap the exact dialogue. However, I do remember precisely what she told me. As we sat eating salad and drinking lemonade, she told me to travel while I’m young, before life gets in the way. Once you get married and have kids, life gets in the way, and you can’t just pick up and leave. When you are young though, you can. She told me too, never to give up opportunities because of a man. If there is an incredible job that you really want, realize that if you give it up and things don’t work out with him, you will regret it. When you are young is the time to be selfish and live your own life before devoting it to anyone else.
What she probably knew at the time that I didn’t was that she was getting divorced. This conversation occurred about two months before the neighborhood found out that this couple was getting divorced and her husband already bought another house and was moving out. Now I realize why these ideas were on her mind, and why she felt it was so important to convey this to me. Before getting married, she had traveled the word. She estimates she has visited over sixty countries. She said Africa was so cheap that she could have lived there forever on the money she had. You don’t have to be rich to get those experiences. Now, however, she is a single mom of two young children. She can’t pick up and travel at whim. Honestly, this is the best advice I have ever received. I want travel, and to just as vacations to islands and Europe. I want to join the Peace Corps after college. Some people see this as idealistic, but really, it can be a reality! My own mother would never give me the advice that my neighbor gave me. My mom married months out of college, and the most foreign place she has ever lived is Texas. Naturally, she would have no basis to give me such advice. She led no such life. However, although my neighbor didn’t realize it, her advice was validation of my dreams. I can do these things that other people think are just part of my youthful idealism. For this, to my neighbor, I am so grateful.
What she probably knew at the time that I didn’t was that she was getting divorced. This conversation occurred about two months before the neighborhood found out that this couple was getting divorced and her husband already bought another house and was moving out. Now I realize why these ideas were on her mind, and why she felt it was so important to convey this to me. Before getting married, she had traveled the word. She estimates she has visited over sixty countries. She said Africa was so cheap that she could have lived there forever on the money she had. You don’t have to be rich to get those experiences. Now, however, she is a single mom of two young children. She can’t pick up and travel at whim. Honestly, this is the best advice I have ever received. I want travel, and to just as vacations to islands and Europe. I want to join the Peace Corps after college. Some people see this as idealistic, but really, it can be a reality! My own mother would never give me the advice that my neighbor gave me. My mom married months out of college, and the most foreign place she has ever lived is Texas. Naturally, she would have no basis to give me such advice. She led no such life. However, although my neighbor didn’t realize it, her advice was validation of my dreams. I can do these things that other people think are just part of my youthful idealism. For this, to my neighbor, I am so grateful.
Value of Life
Goals are what make life worth living. We may be content with things as they are, and things may be good, but we need hope to look forward to the future. To realize that I have lived only such a small part of my life so far is strange. Am I me yet? When I look at my parents, I hardly even consider their teenage selves to be the same people. The rest of their lives are so much more significant to me. Then, in terms of myself, I wonder how it is that I’m not even really living my life yet (at least in the way of which I am speaking). Perhaps these thoughts of mine wouldn’t even make sense to anyone but me, but these are things I ponder, nevertheless.
Even though I love my life now, and I would never wish to fast-forward though high school and college, I am so desperately curious about what will come after. I do have a sort-of dream life that I hope comes true. After all, you only live once.
The thing I want more than anything else is to be able to believe in God. I have been raised Catholic, went to Catechism class, and until the past year or so, my family went to church every Sunday. However, as much as I want to believe in God, I just don’t. There is nothing I can help about it. I know I can’t sit and read the Bible and suddenly have some sort of epiphany. When it comes to it, I just can’t truly say that I believe in God. Although I consider myself agnostic (I can’t bear to consider myself an atheist), I will still be very defensive of Catholicism. I can’t help but feel that IF there were to be a God, the Catholic story is the right one. It is part of my heritage, after all. I think it is terrible when atheists look down on those with faith. I think to have that kind of faith must be the most incredible thing. Faith in God is what keeps so many people going. It is a kind of ultimate hope; we have something good even after this life, and our lives have meaning. To me, it doesn’t really matter what religion someone is. It is that faith that I envy, and I hope that by the time I reach the end of my life, I have that faith.
Perhaps just as important to me is family. I want to fall in love, get married, and have children. I don’t want to get old and die without these things. I am sure this is some sort of compulsion to be just like my own family. After all, this is exactly what my parents did. They met in college and got married the September after my mom graduated. I am the youngest, with two older brothers, and I want older boys and younger girls, just like my own family. Though, of course, I will be the diplomatic pregnant woman who just says she wants a healthy baby, and gender doesn’t matter. I know there is the possibility that I won’t get married. Even if I don’t, though, I still want children. I think, also, more people should adopt. There are so many children who don’t have families. As with many problems that aren’t in people’s faces though, people are content to push this reality to the backs of their minds. Also, certainly, it is part of human nature for people to want their own flesh and blood. After all, the importance of continuing family lines has been perhaps the most important thing to humanity throughout the ages. However, now, I think we all just want love in our lives. Careers and other goals are great, but alone, those things don’t matter.
I certainly do have more professional aspirations as well. My most important goal, career-wise, is just to love my job. The problem is that the things I want to do wouldn’t allow me to have a 9 to 5 job. I’m not sure how well this would fit with my dream family-life, but I won’t worry about that yet. I definitely want a job on the international scope. I would love to work for the government. In keeping with this goal, I want to study abroad in college and become fluent in another language. I love foreign languages. I’ve had Spanish class since first grade, and took Spanish up until this year. I reached honors and AP levels, and I really loved it. I am now in my fourth year of Latin, now at honors level. Latin is a different sort of language. We never actually speak in Latin, except in reading things out loud, and hardly compose Latin ourselves. However, the translation is like a puzzle. We just finished translating Ovid’s “Daphne and Apollo.” I think it is incredible that I can understand this poetry from ancient Rome. All last year, too, I took an Irish Gaelic class for an hour and a half a week. Perhaps the biggest struggle was pronunciation, which wasn’t even something I had thought of. Having taken Spanish since age seven, pronunciation was not a recent problem for me. To see foreign combinations of letters was hard, but eventually, I got the hang of it. I am proud of that. When all the different language classes did their presentations, I was excited to get up and stage a conversation in Irish with my classmates. A lot of people didn’t even realize that an Irish language existed, and they certainly hadn’t heard it spoken before! I also loved to see the other classes’ presentations (It was such a disappointment when the Modern Greek class just danced instead of speaking!). I meant to take Arabic this year, but I forgot about signing up until it was too late! Through this explanation, I have realized that my goals are rather intertwined. I want to continue studying languages, and certainly to be fluent in something other than English. Since the beginnings of education, people have been studying other languages, and sending their children to other countries to do so. To live in another country is therefore an experience I will certainly have. This will fit in rather well with my career goals. I want to work for the federal government in diplomacy, and knowledge of languages would be a key asset, if not a requirement. Though everyone has different career goals, everyone wants self-fulfillment. To have a job I love, whether my goals change, is what is most important.
Finally, ultimately, I want to die happy. I hope that in life I can realize if I’m not happy, I should do something to fix that. Goals may change, and that is okay. If I’m on a path to something I no longer have passion for, I hope I can be brave enough to realize that. My brother majored in civil engineering his whole freshman year of college. Then he realized that what he really wanted to do was landscape architecture. This is perfect for him. Even though he has to be in college an extra year to get enough credits, he still changed his major, so he will love his career. Even when people go through mid-life crises, it can be a good thing. If someone is not happy with what they are doing, why shouldn’t they make a radical change? Ultimately, people want to be happy, and this is what all other goals play into. There will always be those few people who lead incredible lives of innovation and philanthropy and change the world. However, for everyone else, it is enough to just be happy. That is what makes life good.
Even though I love my life now, and I would never wish to fast-forward though high school and college, I am so desperately curious about what will come after. I do have a sort-of dream life that I hope comes true. After all, you only live once.
The thing I want more than anything else is to be able to believe in God. I have been raised Catholic, went to Catechism class, and until the past year or so, my family went to church every Sunday. However, as much as I want to believe in God, I just don’t. There is nothing I can help about it. I know I can’t sit and read the Bible and suddenly have some sort of epiphany. When it comes to it, I just can’t truly say that I believe in God. Although I consider myself agnostic (I can’t bear to consider myself an atheist), I will still be very defensive of Catholicism. I can’t help but feel that IF there were to be a God, the Catholic story is the right one. It is part of my heritage, after all. I think it is terrible when atheists look down on those with faith. I think to have that kind of faith must be the most incredible thing. Faith in God is what keeps so many people going. It is a kind of ultimate hope; we have something good even after this life, and our lives have meaning. To me, it doesn’t really matter what religion someone is. It is that faith that I envy, and I hope that by the time I reach the end of my life, I have that faith.
Perhaps just as important to me is family. I want to fall in love, get married, and have children. I don’t want to get old and die without these things. I am sure this is some sort of compulsion to be just like my own family. After all, this is exactly what my parents did. They met in college and got married the September after my mom graduated. I am the youngest, with two older brothers, and I want older boys and younger girls, just like my own family. Though, of course, I will be the diplomatic pregnant woman who just says she wants a healthy baby, and gender doesn’t matter. I know there is the possibility that I won’t get married. Even if I don’t, though, I still want children. I think, also, more people should adopt. There are so many children who don’t have families. As with many problems that aren’t in people’s faces though, people are content to push this reality to the backs of their minds. Also, certainly, it is part of human nature for people to want their own flesh and blood. After all, the importance of continuing family lines has been perhaps the most important thing to humanity throughout the ages. However, now, I think we all just want love in our lives. Careers and other goals are great, but alone, those things don’t matter.
I certainly do have more professional aspirations as well. My most important goal, career-wise, is just to love my job. The problem is that the things I want to do wouldn’t allow me to have a 9 to 5 job. I’m not sure how well this would fit with my dream family-life, but I won’t worry about that yet. I definitely want a job on the international scope. I would love to work for the government. In keeping with this goal, I want to study abroad in college and become fluent in another language. I love foreign languages. I’ve had Spanish class since first grade, and took Spanish up until this year. I reached honors and AP levels, and I really loved it. I am now in my fourth year of Latin, now at honors level. Latin is a different sort of language. We never actually speak in Latin, except in reading things out loud, and hardly compose Latin ourselves. However, the translation is like a puzzle. We just finished translating Ovid’s “Daphne and Apollo.” I think it is incredible that I can understand this poetry from ancient Rome. All last year, too, I took an Irish Gaelic class for an hour and a half a week. Perhaps the biggest struggle was pronunciation, which wasn’t even something I had thought of. Having taken Spanish since age seven, pronunciation was not a recent problem for me. To see foreign combinations of letters was hard, but eventually, I got the hang of it. I am proud of that. When all the different language classes did their presentations, I was excited to get up and stage a conversation in Irish with my classmates. A lot of people didn’t even realize that an Irish language existed, and they certainly hadn’t heard it spoken before! I also loved to see the other classes’ presentations (It was such a disappointment when the Modern Greek class just danced instead of speaking!). I meant to take Arabic this year, but I forgot about signing up until it was too late! Through this explanation, I have realized that my goals are rather intertwined. I want to continue studying languages, and certainly to be fluent in something other than English. Since the beginnings of education, people have been studying other languages, and sending their children to other countries to do so. To live in another country is therefore an experience I will certainly have. This will fit in rather well with my career goals. I want to work for the federal government in diplomacy, and knowledge of languages would be a key asset, if not a requirement. Though everyone has different career goals, everyone wants self-fulfillment. To have a job I love, whether my goals change, is what is most important.
Finally, ultimately, I want to die happy. I hope that in life I can realize if I’m not happy, I should do something to fix that. Goals may change, and that is okay. If I’m on a path to something I no longer have passion for, I hope I can be brave enough to realize that. My brother majored in civil engineering his whole freshman year of college. Then he realized that what he really wanted to do was landscape architecture. This is perfect for him. Even though he has to be in college an extra year to get enough credits, he still changed his major, so he will love his career. Even when people go through mid-life crises, it can be a good thing. If someone is not happy with what they are doing, why shouldn’t they make a radical change? Ultimately, people want to be happy, and this is what all other goals play into. There will always be those few people who lead incredible lives of innovation and philanthropy and change the world. However, for everyone else, it is enough to just be happy. That is what makes life good.
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