Sunday morning, rain was falling, and me scrolling through Netflix bored, not knowing what to watch, because unfortunately I finished Prison Break, the series I was watching. And I noticed a Ted Talks season, and I thought to myself why not educate myself a bit, but still watch Netflix. That is when I came across with the a speech talking about passions or interests. This made me question my decisions...
How many times have you heard significant people in your life say “ If you want a successful career you need to pursue your dreams and do what you are passionate about”, one time, two times or even ten times you don't seem to actually follow that advice, most people don´t including myself. You hear it and see it, yet you still choose not to do it. Maybe you are too lazy to find your passions or maybe it is just too hard. So then like me you make up a variety of excuses whether or not you make them consciously… You think oh but those people with great careers are just lucky, so you decide I will just wait to be lucky and if not I will just conform with a normal career. Then you come to the observation that those people who are successful and know to follow their career are different they are geniuses, and you are not geniuses. Yet you still want to have a great career, but you are not prepared to pursue that passion of yours, still making excuses. Thinking about what to do, the traditional lesson comes up remembering what school taught you, if i work really hard it will pay off and therefore you'll get a great career. Pushing yourself to it though evidence points the other way. But then, finally you arrive to the conclusion that you should search for it, taht same passion that drives people like Steve Jobs, the “lucky” or “geniuses”. Another problem comes up, open that haunts most of us. So what is your passion? Oh well, I am interested in this you say. Though not noticing that an interest is not the same as a passion. A quote from the talk made me realize this “Are you really going to go to your wife and say marry me! You're interesting!” You'll have thousands of interest though one of them will stand out, and that will be your passion. But… you will still choose not to follow that same advice. Be careful, for when you're an adult and have your family your kid perhaps will tell you “I want to be a firefighter!” and you will not tell him “Go ahead pursue your passion and be happy.” Because then he'll ask you if you did. Not having another choice but lie to him, because you did not pursue it. You were too afraid to follow it, you were afraid you may try and encounter failure. And you'll find yourself questioning why, why didn´t I do it? If only I would have risked it and tried.
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In Lima, Peru you can see poor people all around. As you drive your car through the gray pavement and look outside the window you see a woman that walks with difficulty because she can't pertain her weight anymore and you can barely hear her soft voice through the window asking for money. And sometimes society can be oblivious, because as the woman walks away, you tell to yourself, why doesn´t just this woman get a job, it´s easy for her to just ask for money, but we have to work hard to sustain ourselves. But though have you though that most of the people in the streets wanted to get a job but weren´t qualified, perhaps because they didn't have the appropriate education when they were younger, or because they didn't have a exemplary role model. When this happens I call it the “cycle of education and poverty”. As I read through the topics that my peers had chosen for the “deep dive” project, I noticed a peculiar pattern. While analyzing the causes and effects of each topic and while listening to all the pitches that my classmates presented, I realized that every single problem went back to education. Education is vital to the life of all human beings, not only because you gain knowledge but also because it helps you to survive. When you take a look to all the issues Lima faces there is a common factor in the cause again education. Politics is a huge problem here, most of politicians tend to be corrupted or don´t know how to manage the country, in this case either they weren't taught the right morals or the right way to manage things. Then you analyze a problem such as teenage pregnancy, here again the predator could have had a abusive role model and the victim didn't know how to defend herself or that she shouldn´t be sexually active at such young age. And as I reach the end of the list of issues in Lima I conclude that this is a never ending process. A person in a low level class is born with the right amount resources to live. Her family puts him in a school, where there is a low quality of infrastructure and a low level education, which most schools in Lima have. When she gets out of school she can´t find a good job due to the insufficient knowledge gained in school, or because the school didn't allow her to be there because she was about to become a mother because she didn't learn that being sexually active could be dangerous at that age. When she can´find any job she conforms herself with any open position maybe a teacher position, which she later can´t handle and doesn´t teach the necessary attributes and information and the kids in her classroom become just like her. Perhaps she settle for begging money on the streets or selling candy in the streets, perhaps she is the same woman that you just denied to gave money to just because she didn't have the right education she couldn´t get out of the cycle and stayed poor. Next time someone asks for your support in the street think about this. |
Cristina BarclayCurrent eleventh grader at Colegio Franklin Delano Roosevelt, taking the IB diploma program. Archives
May 2016
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