It's time to step it up.

The quintessential question: What do you want to be when you grow up? An interesting and insightful question.  But knowing what you want and what you will get are far from the same. Don’t get me wrong, this is a great thing to ask to a six year old. But what about when it’s not a six year old, but rather a sixteen year old.  When you’re younger you have the ability to dream without limit and aspire without constraints.  However, as you get older these limits and constraints do come into play. No longer are you simply dreaming for the far future but instead, are facing the oh shit! reality of choosing a life path.

The problem that most teenagers have is that we are stuck in the mentality of a six year old. We have yet to realize the true impact of our choices.  By the time we do realize that maybe we should have tried a little harder, we are working low wage jobs living surviving from paycheck to paycheck. Reading the book Nickel and Dimed reinforced these thoughts in my mind. Barbara, the author, stresses the importance of education in our society today. She explains how difficult it is for those with little education to find a job paying any more than minimum wage.

 I’m sure that the people whose lives Barbara shared in her novel did not wish for themselves to live such lives of struggle. I guarantee that they spent their youth filled with hopes for their future. However, I would also bet that they did not actively work at achieving those dreams.  It’s not enough to want something, you need to be your own self advocate because, if not you, then who?

If there is anything that I have taken away from these past few weeks, it’s that I truly am grateful for my education. I take blame for any mistakes I may have made in the past. I am now working my hardest to try and reverse these things. I don’t want to want a good future , I want to achieve it.