Moments in Time

What does it mean to live a good life? What matters most in life? What are the things that are essential to life that we find that can create an impact on us? What is my purpose as a human being? Such questions soar through my head daily.

I’m just an ordinary person living the life of an average person. Not everyone is the same. While I am misunderstood sometimes because of my way of thinking on what matters to me, it seems like others find them meaningfulness. What matters to me is living the good life. If my smile can change someone’s frown upside down, then that simple random act of kindness makes me day even brighter. Living the good life means to dig down within myself to find what motivates me to continue on to pursuing my goals. Appreciating the simple the things in life -and what I have and don’t have- are important to me.

Being an altruistic person matters to me; it’s a unique personality trait that I can see shining within me. Altruism exists when someone does a favor for someone they do not expect anything to be given back to them as appreciation. I look at this as a random act of kindness; expecting the unexpected. Isn’t that we are suppose to be towards each other? We do a favor for someone and don’t really expect for it to be returned but yet they will give us something in return. It is called doing the right thing. Yet some people do wrong, but as long as I’m doing right and setting an example, it matters. It’s the thought that counts. I find quite a few things (music, books, quotes, movies) along with family and friends that keep me motivated and inspire to find my purpose and to allow myself to continue staying positive.

They say the grass is greener on the other side. Some people have worse days than I do. I don’t think a person can live a perfect life, but life is what we make it, and like the cliché goes “life isn’t fair.” Sometimes my goals and things I hope to accomplish are bigger than the shoes I can fill. Because the dreamer I am, some goals and things I want to do is simply wishful thinking and a plenty of daydreaming.

There is this show on MTV called The Buried Life that deals with four friends traveling across North America on their purple bus named Penelope while they complete their 100 list of “things to do before you die.” In each show they complete an item off their life list and even help a stranger to go after their dream or something they always wanted to do. One simple question can leave an impression about the show: “What do you want to do before you die?” MTV might not be for everyone, but I find this show to be worth watching. It inspires me to want to achieve my goals and dreams before I die whether they are silly, serious, something simple, and or just a random thought. If I could help a stranger out with the resources that I have then I know that I’m living the good life because I’m giving back to make a difference in someone’s life and perhaps this is apart of my purpose.

In a sense, if the guys in the television show can go complete things off their list and help a stranger out in each episode, then I’m sure I can accomplish the goal of becoming a teacher. Perhaps at this point this is what I’m questioning myself about whether I want to continue to be a teacher or not. Since the third grade, I’ve said that I wanted to be an English teacher. Throughout my years in school, I have had the privilege to be taught by teachers that have really cared about educating me and hundreds of other students to come to class and learn; to be a productive citizen of this country. They all have been encouraging educators.

In my family and some of my friendships, I’m known as the one that will become the teacher or the college professor of English. Past experiences in high school deepened my interest in teaching; however, I usually have second thoughts about being a teacher. I’m not sure if I want to teach public schools or venture into writing or a career in some other career. But I can’t imagine myself not teaching something. Never the less, I want to be like the teacher, Erin Gruwell in Freedom Writers. She was brave enough to teach those inner-city students who came from different ethic background and knew nothing when they stepped into her classroom. No matter what happened to her and the students, through all obstacles, she never gave up with giving them a well rounded education. That ambition inspire me to become a teacher because there are students that are needing to be taught and school systems are lacking teachers since not many people want to join the teaching field. But someone has to do it. To change the way students are taught and making a difference in someone’s life matters.

What I’ve said so far matters to me. It’s a side where you have to get to know me because I don’t reveal or talk about myself much. I totally don’t care if I get the look or that doubt that I can’t be a person that can help change the world. I shouldn’t care but I do. And I don’t know why I care so much, but I do. I may feel like I’m in a world of my own with dreams of wanting to be a person of change, an educator, a person who wants to leave in a society where people can just live without no worries or problems, people should live in the country where the laws are to help and not to bring people down. I daydream a lot, and I think of big dreams. Sometimes I feel like they are dreams bigger than my shoe size. I want to change the way people may look at me, not that what they think matters, but I want them to think of me as I want them to be. I want to make friends that will always be my friends. People change and so do their agendas. It appears that nothing stays the change. Just maybe we just drifted off into our own lives and never thought about one another and checking in to them to see how they are doing in life. Sometimes meeting strangers and having conversations with them can lead to new friendships. I don’t want any more people I know becoming people I knew.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

-- Robert Frost