Two years ago I participated in a religious retreat. I remember listening to one talk about the difference of feeling happy and being happy. They explained how you could feel happy by eating a delicious chocolate cake or receiving an award, but how this was just a temporary feeling. On the other hand, there was a choice of being happy. This meant being at a high and constant level of happiness throughout your life. As soon as the presentation ended, I--just like everybody else--wanted to live this perfect life. I wanted to be happy.
Over the next couple of days, I kept searching for this “eternal happiness.” Couldn’t find it. But one day, as we were singing religious songs with the whole group, I felt something. Something deep, something different. My mind was scared, but my soul was somewhere else. Where? I have no idea. The only thing I knew at the time was that I couldn’t get rid of the huge smile on my face. What was this feeling? Fulfillment. I can’t describe the feeling, I just know that I felt complete. I felt that I was at the apotheosis of my life. When I came back home, it was like a was a different person. I had developed a strong connection with myself, my values and my mind. For example, I had a facility to identify what was the right thing to do and I would act this way naturally. I felt stronger and had more self control. I could recognize temptation when I saw it and could ignore it very easily. At this point, I realized that “happiness” is just a vague but popular term being used nowadays. That’s why I decided I wanted to live a fulfilling life rather than a happy one. Happiness, as people know it, is supposed to make you and your life better and fulfilled. But let me ask you something… If a kid is addicted to drugs, is he going to feel happy every time he consumes it? Yes. Is that making him and his life better? Is it bringing fulfillment to his life? Of course not! I would even say that this consumption is making him more miserable each time. Societies sell the idea of “happiness” as something more than what it really is, and some people end up trapped in a hedonic treadmill or losing themselves because of this obsession to find it. The way I see it, happiness does not lead you to live a greater life. On the contrary, it can be frustrating to live your life in the search of the wrong thing. You may think you are looking for happiness, but in reality, you are looking for something else. You are looking for fulfillment. There is a misconception of the word “happiness.” From posters around the school to editions in the TIME magazine, we see this word everywhere. I can’t blame these people that go on the search of happiness, they just fall for what society tells them. These people have probably never felt fulfillment, that’s why they prefer to settle with the common and familiar word. If they would have, they would know that there is something greater than happiness and they wouldn’t be looking for it. Now, many people believe that his fulfillment that I’m talking about can only be found within religion. If you are one of these people, then I have good news for you… it is not! I found my fulfillment in religion, yes, but you can find it from other sources as well. For instance, Epicurus mentioned how people believed that happiness meant money and power. But he didn’t agree with it, he thought it meant friendship, freedom and thought. But let’s think about it… money and power can bring you happiness, but that temporary one. While friends, freedom and reflection can bring much more than that, they can fulfill you. So maybe this misconception of the word “happiness” existed long before we can imagine and that’s why Epicurus referred to this fulfillment as “happiness”, the popular word. Furthermore, Alain de Botton has another view on fulfillment. He also believes that happiness comes with specific events, temporarily. But he mentions that it is far more important to set goals and live a purposeful life. He believes that living a life where you work hard to achieve your goals, even if that means facing some difficult moments and suffering, will bring you fulfillment. This past year, I have been quite distant from my religion. This includes that feeling of fulfillment I had. But knowing how that felt like, I have a constant motivation to win it back. As a matter of fact, yesterday I talked to a priest and he’s helping me get back on track with religion. And let me confess something to you, as I was talking to this priest I already felt something. Something similar to the feeling I got two years ago in that religious retreat...
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This past semester, I have been dealing with a type of struggle that I hadn’t faced before. You see, back in August I was told, in front of my class, that I was a negative force to the class environment. I was labelled.
At first, I was a little surprised since this was something I had never been told before. But what really caught my attention was that no one in the class opposed to what was being said. This led me to reflect and recognize that I might have been doing something wrong. Additionally, I was challenged into noticing that as a natural leader in the class I could easily transmit my negative vibe to others. This is when I decided that I wouldn’t let my behavior affect my classmates’ performances and so I began to take some action in order to improve my character. I began by writing down the three things I was thankful for every day and just saving some negative comments to myself. However, I realised that my label did not go away. It felt like there was a name written in my forehead that was exposed to everybody but was impossible to wash away. And this was when my frustration started to build up. The only thing I was able to do at that moment was torture myself with the idea that I was affecting all of my friends in a negative way. Therefore, I began to push myself a little harder and instead of just taking away the negativity, I decided to contribute with positivity. For example, I planned a scavenger hunt with a friend to bring our cohort together and share a nice moment with them. I also started congratulating my team on the small things they achieved and made sure they all knew I was there to help with a smile in my face. But then what happened was that by only giving positive comments as feedback, my team was not pushing themselves enough and they settled for mediocre job. Consequently, I got even more frustrated than before. So I did what I do whenever I feel this way, I took a deep breath and jot everything down. This helped my ideas organize and tranquility came back to me again. There was one idea that couldn’t leave my head, and it was the idea that by trying to change my character in this way, I wasn’t being honest to myself or to others. The truth is that we all tend to have our good and bad days. Days when we are able to spot an error in everything we do and days when it’s all rainbows and flowers. But regardless of whether it was a good or a bad day, I understood that what mattered was the way I communicated and delivered what I had to say. The message is important but so is the way it is transmitted. That is why I have been working on the way I express my feedback towards other people. And while doing this, I have been able to recognize that if a message is being communicated in a clear and positive way, its impact is much more significant and helpful to the person. I’m glad I’ve had the opportunity to learn this throughout the unit, not only because it helped me to collaborate more effectively with other people but because I have been able to work on a skill that I will use for the rest of my life. A skill that enables me to challenge others without bringing negativity to the environment. In terms of my label, I am confident that if I keep working hard on my communication, I will be able to wash it away. Never in my life have I been so enthusiastic about reading an email. Yesterday, at 7:14 to be exact, I received an email from Purdue's Office of Admissions that informed me of my acceptance to their university. It took me a few seconds to process what I was reading, but it took me even longer to process the fact that I will attend college in less than a year, and even better, my dream college.
Two years ago, when I decided to join the Innovation Academy (IA) program, I had heard some rumors about IA students not being admitted to their dream universities and like any other 16-year-old, I was worried. But the only way to get rid of this worry was to have faith, and that is exactly what I was able to develop in order to stay motivated and ignore those rumors. What is this faith? I like to call it the freak faith. It is basically believing truly that the Innovation Academy is the right program, no matter what other people say or think. It means being 100% committed to the classes, the projects and to the cohort. But it also means that students and teachers challenge each other and the program at all times to keep improving it over time. And how did I develop this freak faith? I fell in love with the program. It all started when I realised that if I was going to commit to something--either a marriage or a program--I needed to know everything about it. That is when I contacted an IA teacher, Mr. Cotter, asking him for specific details about the program. After a long conversation, I learned that the Innovation Academy was a unique program, one that would prepare me for life like no other program could. One that would give me autonomy, would allow me to explore my passions and encourage me to experience in the real world way before most students my age. I also learned that I would be in a classroom with a small cohort, where I could develop a strong relationship with each and every one of the students. One of the things that I loved the most was that I would not have a teacher but rather a mentor that would guide me throughout my experiences and help me recognize my mistakes, while making sure that I get back on my feet and do not trip over the same stone twice. From my perspective, this was the ideal education and I wanted it. When it was time to choose a program, the IA was my #1 choice by far. I believed in it so much that I couldn’t picture myself working for two years in any other class that wasn’t either Bonnici’s, Cotter’s or Corey’s. I knew there were other programs in school that offered clear rubrics, challenging work and claimed to guarantee acceptance to our dream colleges. But my learning aspirations were beyond that. I strongly believe that it is far more important to receive a preparation for life, where there is an understanding that improvement and learning never stops. So yes, I chose the Innovation Academy. I chose to put the quality of my education on top of rankings and acceptance rates. I chose to be a risk taker with the only aim of pursuing my passions and growing as a learner. I also chose to work harder and push myself every day in order to make my not-very-known-internationally program stand out for other students, schools and universities. Now that I have seen the results of my commitment and dedication, I am proud to say that those rumors and misconceptions are completely false. I believe that the program chosen is not the most important aspect of an application, but rather how the student takes advantage of it to grow as a person and to take their learning outside classroom walls. Last week, on a regular afternoon, I received an unexpected visit. As I opened the door, I saw a man in his mid 50’s. He was wearing a blue cap and appeared to have old clothes on. The look on his face was weird, different. I couldn’t read his expression; he didn’t seem happy nor angry. This man was Alex.
Alex was the bread supplier for BombZ*. Originally, he produced only two types but agreed to produce one more for our business. He certainly was not just a baker, he was key to our business. We aimed to transmit his story, connect and benefit the privileged and unprivileged ones with just one bomb. By buying our bread from Alex, we were adding value to his life and to others’ lives by offering his product. Right after I said, “Hi Alex, what brings you here?” He answered, “I am very sorry young lady, but I cannot work for you. I do not have enough interest in producing the type of bread you asked for and wouldn’t like to let you down.” Once in a while, we face some situations that block our minds and make us think that it is all over. When this happens, the best thing to do is step back, take a breath and adapt to make it work. A couple of days ago, I didn’t know that this is what should be done in these situations. Without fully understanding the reason for his withdrawal, I respected his decision and let him go. Not knowing what to do or how to react to this situation, I immediately called my two BombZ colleagues, Chiara and Frances. They freaked out. I quickly got infected with the same feeling. The only thing crossing my mind over and over again was that the protagonist of our project quit, which meant that we had lost a crucial part of BombZ, one that was extremely difficult to replace. After thinking and discussing with many colleagues for hours about ideas to convince Alex to work with us again, we realised that we couldn’t pressure him to do so. We decided to take a step back and look at the problem with an open mind, with the hope of finding the perfect solution. The first thing we did was go out to find a replacement for Alex. We spent a whole morning driving around Lima and asking many bakers if they would be willing to work with us. Their answers can be summarised in two types. Either they weren’t interested in working with us or their price was too high, which wouldn’t allow us to sell it for a decent price or would decrease our profit significantly. Then, we started to think of alternative stories that could be added to our business. After considering having somebody make the breads just so that we could tell his story, we realised that we weren’t thinking effectively anymore. And so we began to freak out again. Everything seemed like a complete failure. While sitting down in class, desperate and disappointed, I thought of asking an outsider for help. We explained the whole story to the substitute teacher and his response was, “What’s the story of the other businesses?” His words completely changed our perspective on the situation. We realised that although having a story would make our business stand out, it didn’t have to be that story. And forcing one at that point wouldn’t result in a better business, but a fake one. We want BombZ to be purposeful and valuable. We understand the power of stories, and how having one could take our business to the next level, becoming more successful. That is why we have decided that a story could and should be added later on, when purposeful. For example, having members of our community help us prepare the bombz and reward them with some afterwards. Allowing people to participate in our business would add value to their lives and to the rest of our audience as well. This is just an example we thought about, but we plan to keep brainstorming along the way to add as much value as possible to the people in our community. The positive and most important thing about our decision is that we are on the same page about the values of our business: purposeful work and transparency. *BombZ is the name of our business, and our product is fresh bread filled with hazelnut cream. For the Innovation Academy Entrepreneurship unit, we are starting a business from scratch, building a brand and a team. We are learning about Entrepreneurship by working with and acting like entrepreneurs. About one month ago, my family and I moved to a new apartment. At first, I couldn’t be happier. I had gotten the biggest room from my other two sisters, I could wake up later because we were near my school and we were able to convince my dad to bring my dog. Everything was going great. As time went by, I started noticing that something was missing but I couldn’t tell what it was precisely. I thought my mom threw some of my things away or that I had lost a pair of shoes. I have been looking around for many days now, and nothing. What I didn’t know was that it was all about to change. Ring-ring, I looked at my phone’s screen and instantly understood what was missing. “I found it, that’s what’s missing!” I screamed at my phone, while my brother kept an ongoing awkward silence, trying to understand what was happening.
This is how I came to realize how one person can have a huge impact on a group and its daily routine. Since the day my brother left to college, the culture in my house hasn’t been the same. The person I used to wake up and annoy every Sunday morning and ask help for my math homework wasn’t there anymore. My routine was broken. After thinking about it for many hours, I noticed that although there was a different vibe at home, it wasn’t necessarily worse. My family was out of its comfort zone for many weeks after my brother left, but we worked collectively to get over it and construct a new culture that would keep us together. Something similar occurred two weeks ago, when one of our Innovation Academy family members left us. Emilio wasn’t just another student of the cohort, he was a key member of the team. I instantly noticed a difference in the class’ vibe, the level of energy and the interaction among members wasn’t the same. After my brother’s call, I understood that I had to change my mentality and think open-mindedly in order to find a solution to this spontaneous change in our culture. In the process of looking for this solution, I began questioning what is currently occurring in our culture. I thought of and analyzed the systems we are working on and I couldn’t find one that needed to be removed. I also thought of new systems that could be added, but the idea is not to load the class with unpurposeful habits. Nevertheless, I do believe that with time we are going to get rid of those that are not bringing our cohort together and helping us work purposefully and collaboratively. To be completely honest, I don't know exactly what needs to change in order to have this perfect culture we are all so obsessed with having. Maybe we are not even looking for the answer in the adequate question; I really don’t know. What I do know is that the first step into solving a problem is realizing that there is one to solve. We need to work harder and question what we are constantly doing in the building of our culture, and who knows, maybe we’ll end up finding it in the process--as a team. One of my reading nights, after finishing chapter 5, I decided to take a break and accompany my parents who were having dinner. My dad asked me about the book I was reading until late at night every day, which is not something I do very often, as he said. Instead of summarising the whole book, I decided to ask him a question, “what’s the purpose of college?” And while he was chewing, I impulsively added, “there is no purpose of going to college.” I don’t know how he swallowed to quickly but he immediately said, “what do you mean there is no purpose of going to college? Of course there is, it is to get you a job!” Those were the exact words that the author mentioned to be wrong about education. You should understand that my dad is a very strict person, who believes in traditional education and the usual cycle of it: school, college, and job. I, on the other hand, have started to question it for the last year and a half, and even more after reading this book. So yes, our conversation didn’t end very well. But just like all things in life, you have to take the best out of it. And what I got out of this conversation with my dad was a true understanding of what the purpose of college was for me, in other words, I got to know a little bit more about my purpose and what I believed in. In my opinion, going to college serves for three main purposes: to find yourself, to explore your passions and to go through failure. How are you supposed to find yourself? It is definitely a hard process, but what better way to do it than in your four years alone in college? Finding yourself means finding your true self, not the one that everybody knows or loves but your soul, that part of yourself that has all the honest answers to your questions. I believe that you can find yourself when making decisions, because your parents are not going to be there to tell you what you should do, like they have done for your whole life, so this is when your true self comes out. Also, you can find it when you have free time and you start doing something, maybe playing a sport, being involved in clubs or activities or maybe just trying to fix your friend’s bicycle, this is when that true soul comes out and does what it truly loves, what it is passionate about. Another main role that college has is to allow you to explore and discover your passions. And for me, the best way to explore is to experience. Taking classes, joining clubs, doing internships, or even talking to people with different passions and perspectives, doing all of these means experiencing. Like my mom always tells me, you have to try it to see if you really like or not. You can’t read a description about a career and decide if you like it or not, you have to try it, to experience it and then make a decision. Think about it this way, you have four years to try a huge amount of things, to discover what you like and what you don’t, what you are good at and what you are not, what you could do for a living and what you couldn’t, so don’t be afraid to experience different things in college. Even if people tell you that you are losing time, don’t listen to them and keep exploring because at the end of the day, they will lose a lot of time when they realize that the career they pursued was not for them. That’s why exploring in college is so important, because even though it can lead you to failure, this is how you will realize how some things are not for you and therefore you become more likely to chose the correct career. Moreover, college is also the perfect place for you to fail and fall because there is going to be somebody to give you a hand and help you get back on your feet. The way I see college is like a gap between childhood and adulthood, it is a place in between high school and your parent dependency and your job and complete independency. In other words, the perfect stage for you to fail. Failure almost always comes when exploring, and what it does is to let you know whether that thing you were experiencing is for you or not. Even though many people connect failure with wrong and offensive things, failure is actually the best way to learn and improve, therefore, to achieve success. Failure is a great form of feedback, and you should take it and work on it to improve, to become a stronger person, an anti-fragile person, to become successful. These are the three main purposes of attending college, and basically what they do is guide you to become a more independent, stronger, and honest person. And what is the result of doing these three things in college? A job. But not any job, one that you will be truly passionate about, that you will be extremely good at, that will make you enjoy waking up every morning at 7:00 AM, that will teach you new things every day and that will depend on you and your greatness. And even more reward? Money. We all need money to survive and we should be aware of it when choosing a job, but it is very different to attend college with the purpose of finding a job that will give you a lot of money than to attend with the purpose of finding your true passion and what you are truly good at, which will make you stand out from the rest of the students in your class that don’t have a purpose. Have you ever heard the word microfinance? Probably yes. Maybe you have heard some businessmen talking about it or your dad trying to teach you some economic concepts. In my case, I had heard my dad and brother discuss microfinance very often, but had always been afraid to even Google it because I thought it was a complicated concept. Due to the economics project I have been working on for the last couple of months, I have been indirectly learning about microfinance and, it turns out that it is not that complicated. Let me show you a little bit of what I’ve learned. Before starting, what is microfinance exactly? It is the idea that people who receive a low income can get out of poverty if they have access to financial services. Banks which specialize in microfinance provide loans to low income people that normally do not have access to credit. They are normally smaller than normal banks and give out smaller loans. Traditional normal banks do not give out such small loans because the profit is too low, but microfinance banks have found a way to provide these loans. I was able to learn about microfinance one on one with people that are part of these banks and also the people on the other side, the ones that need these loans to get out of poverty. The first person I talked to was Vicente Montellanos, a farmer in Pachacamac. He was talking to me about his economic situation and how he needed to ask banks for loans because he couldn’t afford to buy a whole new production process. The main reason why he couldn’t afford it was because all of his crops were severely damaged, or didn’t grow completely, because of the El Nino phenomenon, which brings me to a main aspect of microfinance, risks. According to Robert Christen, microfinance specialist, and Henri Dommel, rural finance advisor, agriculture is widely considered more risky than any other industry. Weather, pests, diseases and other calamities affect the yield of crops, substantially in extreme cases. These risks are higher for farmers engaged in monoculture, which are more sensitive to the correct use of high-quality inputs or the timing of harvesting. In the case of Vicente, he was only planting onions and was tremendously affected by weather. Markets and prices are also risks associated with agriculture because many of these markets are informal. The prices that crops will sell for are unknown at the time of planting and vary depending on levels of production and the demand at the time of sale. Vicente was affected by these risks of markets and prices. He sold his products to an informal market that passed by Pachacamac once in awhile to buy as many crops as possible and the price that this informal market paid him was a very small amount compared to what he thought he would get. The reason why the price was very low was because the onions were not of high quality and therefore, Vicente lost a lot of money due to risks. These crop failures can greatly affect the farmers, since they invest all of their money in a crop that can easily be lost by all of these factors. So, it is not surprising that agricultural lending projects have poor repayment performance. For example, in 2003, Malawi’s crops failed to grow and this ended up affecting 176,000 families, leading them to poverty and severe hunger. (The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Food Programme) Another person I talked to for this project was Rosanna Ramos Velita, the president of Caja Rural Los Andes, and she helped me understand the bank’s point of view on microfinance in Peru. Banks have a significant role in these people’s lives. They can change their economic situation by deciding if giving a loan or not. According to the International Finance Corporation, nearly 8 million people in rural areas of Peru remain under-served. Banks also have to understand the economic situation of the person when considering if giving a loan or not. An important factor they need to consider is the duration of the loan. As Ryan C. Fuhrmann said, “with a longer duration comes a higher risk that the loan will not be repaid. This is generally why long-term rates are higher than short-term ones.” This means that the higher the probability of customers not paying back, the higher the interest rate. Another factor they need to consider is the capacity of the customer to pay back a loan. This is done by looking at their incomes, their expenses and their properties. Another significant factor to consider are the risks, as Rosanna Ramos said, “As a financial entity, we can’t simply give credit to a product that we know might suffer a climatic risk, and we don’t want our client to go in debt and then not be able to pay their loans.” This is why, these banks also need to be aware of all the risks these farmers are exposed to because the risks can change quickly over time. For example, the conditions when you get the loan can be really different from the ones when you need to pay it back. One other factor that needs to be considered is the size of the loan. In Caja Rural for example, there is a 65% annual interest rate for borrowing 1,000 soles, whereas there is a 27% for borrowing more than 50,000 soles. The reason why interest rates decrease as the loan increases is because the cost for lending and collecting money in many small loans is higher than in fewer big loans, as mentioned by Richard Rosenberg, Scott Gaul, William Ford, and Olga Tomilova. In conclusion, microfinance is not an easy concept, especially because there are two sides to it. Farmers are one side of it and banks are the other. On one hand, farmers need the loans to produce their crops. Then on the other hand, it is extremely hard for banks to give loans to farmers because they are exposed to many uncontrollable risks that can leave them unable to pay back their loan. This results in a high interest rate for farmers who are the ones who lack the money but are also the ones that are producing crops. The definition of the word patriotism is an "emotional attachment to a nation which an individual recognizes as their homeland." This attachment, also known as national feeling or national pride, can be viewed in terms of different features relating to one's own nation, including ethnic, cultural, political or historical aspects. Last Saturday —at 6:59 pm— one of the strongest earthquakes in decades hit Ecuador. I heard it first from my cousins, uncles, and aunts, who started talking in our family WhatsApp group. “Are you guys ok? Did you feel it too? Was it an earthquake? I can’t communicate with my daughter! Where are you?” They were all very confused. On the other side, there I was with the rest of the family that live abroad tripling the confusion. We didn’t understand what was happening. At the beginning, I thought it was a normal earthquake, like the ones we get in Peru all the time. But as I was desperately seeing the word typing on top of the chat, suddenly, all of them lost connection. That’s when I got a feeling that I have never felt before. It was a mixture of worry, pain, impotence, sadness, and guilt. I can’t even explain it. My family and I waited impatiently together in the living room, waiting to hear back from them. After about 25 minutes, they started getting signal and finally started explaining everything carefully. I can tell you, those 25 minutes felt like 2 long hours. All of them were able to gather with their families and were all safe. But I still had the same feeling; it wouldn’t go away. I started to get worried because it was an unknown feeling that I hadn’t felt in 18 years. I tried to ignore it and went to sleep. As soon as I opened my eyes the next day, the feeling was still there. I couldn’t get rid of it. So I began thinking about it, trying to find an answer. “Maybe I got a heavy flu or something,” I began to think to myself, trying to escape from it again. But as soon as I grabbed my phone, I saw hundreds of videos on Facebook about the earthquake. It was apparently stronger than what my family thought it was and it had greatly affected small cities like Manabí and Bahía. There was one specific video that really stood out to me, it was about how amazing the Ecuadorians were reacting to this tragic event. (Linked at the bottom) The feeling just got worse as I kept seeing every minute of this video and I concluded that maybe this awful feeling was because my country was completely destroyed. My country, I have never said that. I should tell you a little bit about my background story. I was born in Ecuador but because I have moved nine times to seven different countries, I did not consider myself an Ecuadorian. I never felt an attachment to this country, and so never classified it as home. But when the earthquake hit Ecuador, I felt like it hit me, I suffered everyday for the people that lost their homes and family members as if I had lost mine. I knew I had to do something to help my country and all of the victims, so I immediately contacted Mr. Akin and proposed doing an out of uniform day to raise funds and help my compatriots. By raising awareness in our community and collecting more than 8,000 soles we were able to donate about 200 mattresses to all the Ecuadorians who became homeless. Even though this was a terrible event that caused so much suffering to millions of people, it was also a significant thing for me because it finally opened my eyes and allowed me to see that I am an Ecuadorian and I should be extremely proud of being one. Seeing all of the campaigns that people from Ecuador did all over the world was a true example of the gigantic hearts and the true passion that we all have for our country and our people. I could even say that this event was the solution to a big struggle that I had, which was discovering where I came from and what was home. I realized that the reason I was worried sick about Ecuador was because of the emotional attachment I have for it. I finally felt a sense of patriotism for a country. I still don’t believe someone should be limited to only one home, because this same passion I feel for Ecuador, I may find in the future with another country that I lived or will live in. Even though I was born in Ecuador, I'm not saying that you need to be born in a country to be emotionally attached to it. But, you will know that you think of a place as home when you get that feeling. So, from now on, whenever people ask me, “where are you from?” or "where were you born?” I will finally have an answer in less than 20 seconds, Ecuador. Yesterday, when filming for our documentary, I had a moment of realization. It was when I was talking to Cesario's wife, Juana. Although our languages were different, I tried asking her about their economic situation and if their income was enough for all the basic expenses such as food, water and health. Juana kept saying that it was enough, that they had survived with this income for many years. But, as I had the opportunity to look at their house, clothes, means of transportation and they all seemed to prove her wrong. Luckily, Cleida came in when noticing that we weren't able to communicate that well and she started translating what I was trying to say in Quechua for Juana to understand. I saw how her facial expressions started to change, I realized she didn't understand me at all and now she was explaining to Cleida about their situation. "It's not that their income is enough for all of the expenses, but they are used to this. They have conformed to what they have," Cleida told me. Conformity was the word that stood out to me when hearing this explanation. What is conformity? It has more than one meaning, but the one I will be talking about is the acceptance of your actions and/or possessions without complaining. I believe we all have a different life style and we conform to it. For example, many families have a house and a good education. They have had this life style for many years and they cannot imagine themselves without these two "basic" possessions. On the other hand, there are hundreds of families out there that cannot afford either a house nor a good education. But, in both scenarios, they have conformed to what they have and after many generations it becomes normal. This is exactly what happened to Cesario and his family. They are used to living with limited amounts of food, so some months they can eat and some they cannot. They are also used to living without any health insurance, without education for their kids, and without a stable means of transportation. Comparing their life style to mine, these are all extremely important and a need. But for them, these are more like luxuries; things they can dream about but can't have it. That's why when I asked Juana if their income was enough, she said yes, because for them their life style allows them to survive. This realization really made me think about how we perceive things. We all have a different perspective on what is necessary for a pleasing life style, right? For some it might be a grain of rice, a house, a family, a car, education, or 1 million dollars. So what is actually necessary? This is something that no one can answer. There is not a right or wrong answer. In my opinion, having a family is the biggest necessity we have, caring so much about them that all the material things become insignificant, such as having a house or an education. My opinion was changed by this realization, I've always thought that these are necessities but they are actually all luxuries. The only thing we do need is people that care for us to push us to accomplishing our goals and being happy, a family. So, from now on I am going to value my parents and my brothers and sisters even more but also value all the luxuries I have and enjoy them because there are so many families that have no access to them. And I encourage you to do so as well because we are extremely lucky to have everything we do. Yesterday, as I arrived to my house — after being in a gymkhana for the entire day — I received a message from a friend inviting me to a SAAC party in his house. There was a part of me that wanted to go, to see all my friends and have a good time. On the other hand, I was so tired from the gymkhana and I had so much homework to do. So I decided to stay home. And later at night, when I was thinking of my decision, I realised that I haven’t been going out with my friends for a long time, since the end of last year. But why? I stayed until late at night thinking about this, trying to find the answer to as why this was happening. And finally I found it, time. When I was a little girl, the first thing I would do when coming from school was to go out and play with my neighbours. I spent the whole afternoon running around and having a great time in my neighbourhood. But as I grew up, this free time I had in the afternoons kept decreasing and decreasing until today, where it has completely disappeared. You are probably thinking that I need to manage my time effectively to solve this, and yes you are right in one aspect. I have been working on this for the last two years and I’ve actually found some free space in some days. The problem is, I’ve kept adding more activities in these spaces. And now that I’ve realised this, it is extremely difficult for me to “delete” them from my daily routines; they have become part of me. All the activities that make up my daily routines aren’t just activities, they are very important to me but I guess everything has its pros and cons. For example, doing my Meninas workshop. It takes up a lot of my time; researching, planning and doing it. It also means I can’t go out on Fridays or stay at a friend’s house because I need to wake up very early and prepare everything. But I am willing to do these sacrifices because I love doing my workshop, I enjoy it every time. Another example is being part of the SBG. I’ve never been happier to be part of such an incredible group and being the voice of students but this also means I have to attend meetings on Mondays and Fridays during lunch, which restrains me from seeing my friends in school as well. Like these two, there are many other activities I have on my weekly calendar that have the same effect; they keep subtracting more hours from my free time. With this realisation, I am now having second thoughts about a decision I was completely sure about: running for high school president. As I mentioned before, the SBG has become a huge part of me, I honestly can’t imagine another high school year without being part of this amazing and unique group. Being president of the whole student body has always been my ultimate goal, something I’ve been preparing for since many years ago. On the other hand, it is going to be my last year in school, the last year to be with my whole grade, to go out with them and probably my last year in Peru. Both are very significant for me and now I fear I won’t have the time for both. Thus, what now? How am I going to choose between these two? At the moment, I cannot make a final decision. The only thing I am certain about is that they are both extremely important to me and it wouldn’t be easy to let go. However, maybe I need to see it from a different perspective, maybe I could try to fit one activity with the other to make it work; such as doing more SBG activities to share with my whole grade. Maybe I could give up some of my sleep hours to at least see them on a Saturday night. Or maybe I will need to give up my dreams to enjoy my last year with all of my friends. Right now, I honestly don’t know what the best decision is but what I do know is that I’ll try everything to make my last year, the best of all. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
March 2017
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