The Words That Planted my Future By: Sarah Alsaid by sarah

The Words That Planted my Future By: Sarah Alsaid by sarah - August 2013 Scholarship Essay

"Be everything they never thought you could be," he told us as we were discussing the required high school novel, Of Mice and Men. Those words were enough for my teacher to start giving us another reality check about life.  Little did I know that lesson was the foundation of my future, motivating me enough to actually want to pursue my once childhood dream as a professor. He then continued telling us about the struggles of living in the rustbelt. How he grew up in a low income, unstable home, with an alcoholic father. With that said, no one from his high school ever became somebodies in life. As a matter of fact, he used to always joke about his generation- "Generation X", saying how they ruined the country. Anyways, he was a troubled kid and nobody had any hope for him at that time, or even in the future. They all thought he would be like them and stay in that town, barely making a living. They all told him he couldn’t do this and couldn’t do that, and in spite of those painful words, they helped him turn his life around. Nevertheless, he proved to them he could be anything if he put his mind to it. And because of all the doubt they had about him, it motivated him to change his way of living.  15 years later, he has served our country in Iraq and he is working on a master’s degree in leadership. Thus, that was the most important, inspiring, useful lesson that I have learned in the past 10 years of my education. Those words were like seeds that planted a pulchritudinous future for me, and although it's still small, you could see the plant beginning to burgeon.