Who are you going to be? This question doesn’t ask what are you going to do, but what kind of person do you aspire to be? To answer this question, we first need to know who you are right now. Are you someone who sits around doing nothing all day, or are you someone who thrives to make an impact on the world? Are you happy? What even is Happiness? Happiness is something that can be hard to achieve, especially as you progress through life, but when you’ve reached it, you’ll feel great.
As someone who is getting to the harder parts of school, I’ve found myself to be less and less happy. There’s always a need to find balance in life, whether thats school, jobs, or loved ones. I can never really balance between school and the people I love. I tend to focus more on my social life, putting my schoolwork aside. Things start to pile up, and I get stressed about school. The quality of work that I put out gets worse, and then my grades drop and I become less happy. When I become less happy, the less I wanna do anything, less so work. I put the work aside and they keep piling up. It’s all just a cycle. A cycle that I’ll have to pull myself out of.
Why am I like this? Who am I? Honestly, I don’t really have an answer to that. I can identify some characteristics of myself, and who I am to others, but I don’t actually know who I really am. It’s not an easy question to answer. Throughout this entire project, I have made some discoveries and learned more about myself, maybe enough to the point where I could at least answer this question a little. I am Logan, a student, friend, brother and son. I am a quiet person, keeping things to myself and even when I talk, I am not loud at all.
This project was all about knowing who you are and who you want to be. In a Michelle Obama video, she asked this question: Who are you going to be? She talked about the most important characteristics of a person, and that is resilience, hard working, being open minded. Being resilient means you get up again and again, not matter how many times you fall down. Each time you get up, you are stronger, learning from your past mistakes. You work hard in your life, putting in as much effort as you can to bring out the best qualities of work. Having an open mind is accepting others, no matter if they or their opinion is different from yours.
This video really stuck out to me because of one thing she said. Most companies hire people with those three qualities, and not based on their grades or background. I’ve always thought of things the other way. I’ve always tried to get the best grades and get into the best schools, thinking that if I have that to offer, I’ll be successful in life. Though I may not fully agree on this, it’s still something that’s pretty important here.
In a nonfiction novel that I read called Unbroken, there were many life lessons to be learned as well. The story follows a person named Louis Zamperini, who was an American Olympic runner and a WWII veteran. He faced many challenges in his life, but he was resilient, allowing his to survive the war and live on until he died at the age of 97. One example of his resilience and forward looking mindset is when his plane crashed into the ocean. Him and two men had to survive for weeks on a raft, drifting in the Pacific Ocean. For some days, they couldn’t get any food, but once they finally did, he saw a glimmer of hope when others didn’t. They were rescued in the end, but that crash was a real challenge that they had to overcome.
We also watched a video on Sam Berns’ TEDTalk in class. He had progeria, an extremely rare and fatal disease that causes the body to age rapidly. Despite this, he still lived a fairly happy life, and even went on to give out advice on how to be happier. He had a philosophy for a happy life:
- Be ok with what you can’t do, because there is so much that you Can do.
- surround yourself with quality people that you want to be with.
- keep moving forward!
- don’t miss a party if you can help it.
I think that keep moving forward is the most important one in there. I tend to always let the bad thoughts and emotions linger for far too long. If I move on quickly, then the negative things wouldn’t affect me as much. With this philosophy, Sam was able to live a happy life, so if it worked for him, it might also just work for everyone else.
In an interview with Ms Pitches, I asked her what she thinks happiness is, and she defined happiness as such. “Happiness is almost unobtainable, it’s a moment of joy.” I think that his is a very good description on what happiness is. I mean think about it. Have you ever been happy for very long? Sure the moment of joy can last long, but it usually doesn’t. She also had other advice to give, such as how to find balance between things, and how to be happier. Her strategy was to just ignore the haters. They don’t mean anything to you. Do what makes you happy, and keep doing that.
So with everything that I’ve learned in this project, I put it all into a graphic organizer and highlighted everything that is connected.
But there’s still one question left to answer. Who do I aspire to be? Well, I aspire to be a person who is liked by people and is overall happy with what I’ve achieved in life. Unlike some people, I don’t really aspire to make an impact of the world. If I do that’d be awesome, but it’s not one of my goals in life. My goal in life is just to be happy and successful. Not wealthy successful, but achieved successful. If I follow the advice and philosophy of what I learned in this project, I believe that I can make it.