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Discovering Who You Really Are

Have you ever looked back on a moment, during the worst time of your life, and realize it was your happiest? Some may say that your best moment has to occur at the peak of some amazing, life altering accomplishment.

To most, the idea of standing on a street, you don't even know the name of, in England in the pouring rain, with someone you just met, doesn't qualify. About two years ago, when I was fifteen, this moment was mine. When you're fifteen, life is about finding out who you are. It's about coming into your own identity, and leaving your childhood behind. For me, to do this, meant leaving everything I knew behind.

Growing up in Nowheresville, USA means that everything in your life balances out. Everything is in some sort of never-ending equilibrium. Your family, friends, even academics, remains more or less the same as when you were five. To find out who you are, you have to go out of your way to leave behind all you already know. That was the summer that I left.

I talked to my parents and together we decided that I could go to England for the summer. I know what you are thinking, and no, I did not go by myself. I was with an exchange program. Or at least I thought I was. In preparation for the trip, I researched everything about England. I saved every drop of money that I could get my hands on. T

he nearer the trip got the more my friends begged me not to go. They didn't want me to leave their world of sameness. It was as if they knew I would not return the same. They wanted to keep me in the world that kept me a child for fifteen years.

Once, a very wise teacher told me the story of "Buddha". Buddha was a young prince a very long time ago. His parents hid the truth of the world from him by filling his life with beauty and love. One day he went to see life beyond the walls of the palace. He saw for the first time pain and sadness. Not wanting to live inside the walls of a lie, He left and began teaching the philosophy that suffering is life, is love.

Nowheresville was my palace and I was ready to leave, to embrace whatever was waiting for me when I stepped off the plane. Of course, it wasn't at all what I expected. When I stepped off the plane what was waiting for me was nothing. As I later researched, upon my return to America, the foreign exchange program was a scam for money.

In America I had passed people on the streets begging for food and money many times. In England, I was one of them. I was dirtier, thirty pounds lighter and desperate, full of disgusted looks and rejection.

Finally after twelve days of life on the streets an old woman in a brightly colored parka offered to feed me and give me a place to stay. She was the kindest woman I will ever meet, and upon arriving at her beautiful home, she fed me hot tea and fruitcake. She told me that same story of "Buddha" .

This time I understood. And in that moment I realized that I couldn't take advantage of that lovely old lady's kindness. You can't let other people fight your good fight, because it's yours. So I thanked her for her consideration-and her food, and explained that I could not accept her offer to stay.

This was the moment. My moment. There I was in England, on a road I didn't know the name of. I was there in the rain with a person I just met, myself.

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