Purpose of Living

The ancient question that has rattled the minds of philosophers since the concept of though had been whether life had a purpose.  Why do we live?  What is the meaning in life?  As a recluse and unsociable individual who has always seen life through a biased perspective, I have pondered this question in times of boring car trips, lying in a field, or waiting for a responsible adult to pick me up from school.  It's obviously a nebulous question designed to analyze the ideals and morals of various individuals; that's the very point.  Each person answers this question independently and with different answers.  Although this is the question's purpose, many will answer with "I don't know".  This requires a rephrasing of question to What do you live for?  I've seen various lives and how people live them, some who follow a purpose, clinging onto something they believe is purpose, or are desperately searching for a reason to continue living.
"What does this have to do with anything?" you may ask.  As a person who lives watching others and is taught by old pages from books passed down generations, I see a trend if you may call it.  The answer to the nebulous question that I had come up with was vague in and of itself.  For what reason do I live?  I live to change.  The universal concept of life is that life is constantly changing and moving forward.  Change is integral in the development of the human race whether it is a good change or bad.  We live to change ourselves to become something better than ourselves and change the lives of others.  I have, since I was born into the modern world, always been living for the sake and desires of peers and others.  As time slips by, I became aware of my own lost existence as a result of this adherence to the wishes of others.  I needed to change myself.  Whether I could change into a citizen accepted by society or a man beaten by society's regulations and ideals was all dependent on my own change and what kind of change of character I was searching for.  I live for others; I always have and will continue to do so.  I want to live to heal others, support others, and enjoy myself along the path.  I believe that with the limited time we all have we should change ourselves to suit the needs of others and fill that empty gap within ourselves.  I want to do many things and travel many different paths of life.  I want to be a medical professional.  I want to become an inspiration for someone.  I want to ensure that the generations to come will know of some contribution I had made in this world before I had departed from the physical world.  Although I won't be able to fill out my to do list completely, I hope others will benefit from my own changes because as I attempt to do this, I will enjoy every minute of it.

Mistakes down The Road

As we continue down our paths through life, we all stumble and fall because of our own shortcomings and mistakes.  Unfortunate events in which we feel like the world itself is against us is uncommon and we have all experienced this very feeling deep down.  There have been many unfortunate events that I can recall, but I shall only describe one.  When I was young, I used to vent out my stress by throwing shoes at a large net on the field held up by large poles.  The net was designed to catch high flying balls, but it served as a net to catch shoes and bounce shoes.  My friends and I tried our best to get our shoes over the net, and I won.  The reward was losing my shoes on a neighboring house roof outside of the campus.  So, I went throughout the school day with only one shoe.  I actually took someone else's shoe to compensate.  When I look back on the experience, I shouldn't have participated in such an activity at all.  I probably would have just watched others or done something else.

The Theory of Unhappiness

Things that make me Happy
Anime
Video Games
Cross Country Running

Things that make me Unhappy
Finishing homework and studying late
Getting taunted about college rejections and acceptances
Getting constantly reminded of my faults and mistakes

I could try to ignore insults and bad memories as I usually do.  Finishing homework early is pretty difficult because I have track and field training which causes me to begin studying late.  If I keep moving forward and following my own path, I can continue to live my life content.

Regretful Experience

I have had many various experiences that I consider regretful.  If I had to choose one in particular event, it would be in elementary school.  I learned a few words from my friends at lunch and during class we began saying various phrases.  The class activity was a worksheet which I had finished early, but I kept saying things that were on my mind until I had said the new words I had learned from my friends.  The room went quiet and it dawned on me that I had said the words aloud to the class.  Only when I was called into the principal's office did I know what they meant.  To this day, I continue to think back on that time.  I had never cried in front of the class before until that day and it was a lesson for me.  I was ignorant and didn't know much of anything that hadn't been written down in textbooks and required school literature.  After that experience, I believed that it would be much better keeping my mouth shut in class.

Loss for Words

During 7th grade in middle school, I lost my grandfather to a heart attack.  It happened in the morning of a Saturday when we had planned on picking our grandparents up to go shopping at Westminster.  I had learned that my grandfather died in his sleep from a heart attack.  Although I hadn't known him that well or had many memories from him, I couldn't help but sob in the living room chair.  I thought about the things I could have done and should have done while he was alive.  My cousins were unaffected and continued to play despite the glum atmosphere.  They wanted me to join in with their game, and that's when I realized that crying wouldn't bring him back.  I coped with the loss with the help of my close relatives.

Society's Troubles

It is troubling to think that we still have to speak of issues in modern day society that have been present for decades.  Women are not completely equal.  Racism is still prevalent in our way of thinking and stereotypes. The social issue that makes me the most irritated is child abuse.  Child abuse has come to envelop child neglect and abandonment.  We rarely speak of child abuse in a school such as Mira Costa High School, but the literature we read and the world we live in still carry on this troubling issue.  I cannot relate to this issue as someone who was pampered in my childhood and was raised to be a successful citizen in modern day society, but I feel that how a child develops is important in how the person grows up and finds their path in life.  Many do not find that path, follow the paths of others, or do not attempt to find their own unique path of their own as a result of the suffering or trauma.  Child abuse is a root cause for many other social issues which is why this issue makes me the most irritated that such an issue is still existent in today's world.