by say

Intellectual growth and emotional maturity are practically inseparable, as each one aids peerlessly in the development of the other. Therefore many people who—and intangibles which – have facilitated my growth as a conscious member of society have more notably assisted me in developing myself as a human being.
It has always gone that I feel more strongly than I think. Therefore I have done many ludicrous things that I could not endeavor to explain; blurting things many a time that I regret, forgetting people that should have entered my thoughts on countless occasions, and putting a stopper in my own success, to name a few. In my development from a shy yet hyperactive child to a reflective, cognizant, and enthusiastic college student, the people willing to offer assistance and the inspirations have been innumerable. Pieces of my journey have been tedious, amazing, treacherous, disgusting, and beautiful. The “self” I have created is actually a mosaic of people and concepts, each comprising a portion of their selector that is “I.”
I will start with Mother, Mama. The wearisome story I hear time after time that a person has become their parents is a part of me too, as the largest single portion of my “self” is my Mama. She is human and has very many flaws, and as her daughter I see them all in full color. All in all though, she is a good person; by this I mean that she truly makes an effort to contribute everything that she can to the world even when there is nobody to attest to her successes. Also, she loves people very deeply, which I have come to recognize as part of my personality as well. She thinks that loving is enough, but I could not disagree more. Knowing that you are loved or (dare I say?) thinking that you are loved is very important when personal perception is the only insight we have into the minds of those around us. I have learned this from her, as I finally know, somehow for sure, that she loves me very dearly; despite appearances of prevalent anguish in our relationship. I think a great deal can be learned from love, but love has not helped me with everything.
Chris offered a different sort of worldview than my mother did – dually that being upfront is beneficial, and that emotions are not appropriate for the workplace. He was the first real boss I ever had, aside from mothers for whom I was “the neighborhood babysitter,” so naturally I absorbed every word he said with wide eyes, nodding interminable agreement. I have not yet successfully applied this concept to my actual life, but I do think that even the most honest emotions can be inappropriate when they are replaced so readily by cool, indifferent facts. Having a passionate adoration for humanity and pursuing a career as a nurse, I think it is important to realize that grieving for strangers will not often be welcome in the eyes of those close to them. Though I do think that it was rather nice for Chris to phrase his request to his employees the way he did; he did not say that we should not have emotions, only that we should not show them. This helped me to appreciate Mr. Peters’ generosity in what may have seemed to be a rude awakening.
Language is one of my two most innate abilities, and I have been an avid reader since before literature was part of my grade’s curriculum. In retrospect I think it is fitting that it was one of my English teachers in high school who taught me my most valuable lesson – there is no shortcut to understanding. Mr. Peters put personality into his work without sacrificing his intellectual prowess… he was known throughout the school as the best teacher, and the toughest. Nothing got by him, he knew Shakespeare, Greek mythology, and the Bible by heart; you had to actually do the work to get an “A” in his class. I became fairly skilled at writing at an early age, and thus proceeded to command words into perfectly scoring essays about which (to my eternal shame) I truly knew nothing. I was shocked when Mr. Peters gave me a failing grade on my first paper, noting at the bottom that I’d written a beautiful essay, but I had not read the book. He continued to grade the work that I did, rather than my intelligence, which helped me to create for myself a valuable work ethic. When I signed up for English my senior year, I requested that he be my teacher again, to reinforce my somewhat-more-than-sophomoric idea that I should not expect what I have not worked for. The second time he taught me, I realized that this idea has an important flip side: you should always expect what you have worked for. He taught all of his students how to write an AP essay that would demand the grade they had earned, effectively rendering obsolete any apologetic excuses for failure that, he repeated, should never be used. I have found since then that it is important to differentiate between apology and humility.
Simultaneously, as I went through high school, I was guided gently by the mother of one of my close friends. Mrs. Irick could always sense when I was down, and she would talk to me for a long time about eventualities she had detected in her life, which was brimming with a rather unique balance of thought and action. Each devoid of the other is foolish in a sense. Action without thought leads to many hotheaded and hasty decisions, while thought without action is reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in which Hamlet spends the last months of his life avoiding what he feels obligated to do; he wastes his precious time wallowing in despair. Mrs. Irick found that the delicate balance between thought and action could be attained by living passionately but pausing often to reflect. She also taught me that caring never goes unappreciated, even if I never did tell her that she was warmer to me (by twenty degrees) than my own mother.
In a way, every life is shaped by death. My friend Karl, who is finishing a dual major in philosophy and psychology, phrased grief well. He told me that to grieve is to realize how much someone meant to you in the first place, which I find is dreadfully accurate. In one sense, the deaths of those who are dear to us teach us that a complete termination of human potential is inevitable and possible at any instant. Contemplating the fragility of those we love eventually leads to awareness of our own vulnerability. In this way, our own deaths shape our lives as well, because I think people live differently based on their attitudes towards death. I personally believe that my life will slip away whether I make good use of my time or not; which is a thought I have come to gradually in the past year. I have plans to attempt to give the world as much goodness as it has given me before I die, and I hope that I will have the opportunity to do so. I feel like life is an awfully high price to pay for such knowledge. (The two people I mourn for most deeply are still too tender to mention as “gone” in a piece of formal writing.) On the other hand, I think death is partially responsible for the beauty of life. Death is the subtle motivation behind every risk, for with endless time I doubt humans would be under any stress to live.
I have an overarching sense that life is too short to worry. In the long run, there are very few things worth getting worked up about, and those things invariably fall outside our personal spheres of influence. I nevertheless worry about everyone I know, but at least I do so with the knowledge that I am not doing anything productive. My Uncle Les tells me about Vietnam sometimes. Many of his closest friends were those people who he lived through war with. I doubt anyone who has not been to war can imagine well what it is like. He has kept contact with a few people across the country, across the years. He told me that after war, very little seems worth suffering for. There are things people suffer for that are not grades or promotions or logistics; things that are not details. He has also told me indirectly that we are all blessed more than we know, and that happiness and success are independent of one another. I do not have a good name for this mindset which I have begun to adopt, but I will call it mental clarity. By clarity I mean that it is very easy to be temporarily satisfied by life when I am saturated in details, but it takes a greater vision, as well as a clearer mind, to attempt to view life in its entirety.
Pacifism is a philosophy around which I attempt (sometimes failing miserably) to shape my interactions. There are several definitions of pacifism floating around, but I hold to one that protests any action that would deny another entity the potential for happiness. This is less constraining than it might seem, as a hindrance to happiness is not the same as the prevention of it. However, I do additionally feel that war, torture, ignorance, and other forms of preventable pain are something to rage against, and, when given the chance, to refuse to engage in.
There are two vaguer concepts that affect my mental processes as well; these are innocence and suffering. They are quite contradictory in some ways, as a huge part of suffering for me has been disillusionment, which is what naïveté, or its euphemistic innocence, is not. These are concepts I have gleaned from literature, especially writings and teachings on Buddhism tempered with J.D. Salinger’s destructively passionate (albeit mostly fictional) stories. I find both concepts tied inexorably to knowledge on a linear scale. I think that understanding is a form of suffering, and innocence is a tantalizing copout. In other words, loss of innocence, one of the classic plights of literature, is a terrible, necessary part of maturation. Suffering is a fundamental component of being alive.

I want to understand, I need to give back to the world (and to people especially) and I plan to do so whilst continually redefining my “self” in the process. I do not expect life to be an easy trip, and frankly I would feel extremely unfulfilled if it turned out to be. I do have concrete plans though, despite life’s volatility.
As far as schooling goes, I will do as well as I can without sacrificing the things I enjoy; these are mainly spending time with others, playing music, and playing music with others, as well as biking for hours when I am sad. I will graduate with decent, average grades after four years, and if all goes well I will have an education that is superb, despite my middling grades. This is quite possible even if it seems contradictory, as learning requires attention and interest, while grades often involve hard work and sometimes superfluous details. I will not fail a single class, though. If ever I encounter a class that troubles me, I will be diligent with my homework, even if I find it tedious.
As an addendum to my previous statement, I do not have a flippant attitude towards education. I find learning refreshing and pertinent, as the things we learn in class have daily applications which entrance me. If I had nine lives, I would devote at least three of them solely to learning absolutely everything I could.
Following graduation, I will go into the Peace Corps in Haiti for two years. The French I know will probably not help much, but I am quick at learning languages, and as my mother’s family is Cajun, their French is similar to Creole. I have heard of developments in health care there, and am excited that I could potentially do good in one of the poorest countries in the world. I hope to gain an understanding of happiness among people who have nothing, as I have always had everything I really needed. I understand that Haiti can be dangerous, but if I die I will die knowing I have given something back to this beautiful planet. I plan on living, though.
After Peace Corps, I will work until I have paid off my loans, and then go back to school with the goal of becoming a nurse practitioner. I will also minor in Spanish, since I speak it adequately but have hardly ever read or written it. It will most certainly be applicable, as Spanish is our country’s second language! Once I am done with that, I will settle down and perhaps get married, confident in my salary if ever I need to raise my children solely. Additionally, I like extremely warm climates very much, so I will probably live in the dry, sparkling Arizona or in one of the colorful houses in New Mexico under that huge sky. Maybe I will live in one of the lush valleys of California, or maybe I will live everywhere! The places I have mentioned have all experienced a tremendous influx of immigrants from Latin America in the past few decades, and (having minored in Spanish) I would be able to provide an N.P.’s medical attention in their own language if the need arose.
I really want to have kids, as I am always a little jealous of the mothers I babysit for: I have never disliked a child I babysat. Children make me very happy, but if I do not become involved in a lasting relationship (which is unlikely, since I love people deeply and am willing to give everything I have to those I love) or if I cannot have children, then I plan on seeing the world. I do not think that I could give my children the attention they deserved if I was visiting Egypt and Hong Kong and Pakistan in my spare time, but if I do not have children then I will try and spend several weeks in another country whenever I possibly can. It is very important to me that, while I am doing this, I live like each country’s native inhabitants (or as nearly like them as possible). I have never been outside the United States, but I like that people live so differently everywhere around the world and yet all the different approaches to life work out; there is this incredible beauty everywhere.
All in all, I think life will be over in a heartbeat. Nursing is perfect, it does not take too long to get a degree, and yet I can help doctors work effectively to keep people functioning so that they can enjoy life. I want to help out, but I also want to learn how to make extremely spicy food, play my guitar on the streets of Mexico and Canada, roll around with whomever on a blanket under the stars by some elementary school in my hometown, harvest fresh asparagus by the railroad tracks, and write about everything! I want to sing with everyone I meet, to teach my clumsy feet to dance, to listen to poetry in Spanish and French, to invent some of the things I think of, to finish my book about a guy named Steuben, to swim across the Atlantic, and to cry with joy when the cold Himalayan air stings my sunburned face.