Final Essay

Kate Dolorito

August 8, 2013

English 1A

Mr. Sean McFarland

Little Drops of Water Makes an Ocean   

            Ever day, we become witnesses to different kinds of success stories. From social media to listening people talk, we hear all these success stories that sometimes inspire us to become part of the trend. I want to have success in my life, and I’m very sure everyone in the world wants success in their lives. The questions are: how did the success people do it? How did they become success? What’s their secret? The secret lies within us. It is the choices we make each and every day that determine whether we’re going to be successful tomorrow or in the future, or never. Those choices are getting affected by a lot of factors from all around us. We have family, friends, society’s standards, financial security, environmental security, passion, social status, and many more other factors. We have to consider them all on all the choices we have to make in life. The secret to success is able to make those choices with no regrets. It shows very easy, but in reality, it isn’t.

            In the book and the movie, Into the Wild, Christopher McCandless show us his definition of success. He is a college graduate with a passion for nature. For his final college adventure, he goes to the North, Alaska. Chris comes from a middle class family. He has money, college degree, and safe environmental. He has what many of us want for our own; however, Chris doesn’t want it. He wants a simple life. That is success. He doesn’t want society telling him what to do. This desire he has made him decide to pursue his final adventure, to go to Alaska. People think of him as a mad man, but I think he did this to find his own success. He believes that the success people achieve through college is what success mean to society. He believes there is another meaning of success. He will find those answers through his passion for nature, his eagerness to know the truth, and his love for adventure.

            In the real world, students encounter each day with decision to make. I believe these decisions students like me are making affects that we are inside.  I want students to express their true self, and I’m glad for students who show themselves. Students are always looking to find ways to express themselves in the world out there. One of the ways they use to express themselves is by making a movie. The movie, “The Passion Project”, is a film that features several students that shares their own personal struggles and insights as a college student and college life. Many of the students that got interviews for this film tell us their own unique experience. They also tell us how they try their best to overcome each challenge that separate them from their success and happiness.

            I think everyone will agree with me that success doesn’t come easy; it has to be earned to be called something a success. For sure, achieving success is one of the greatest things in the whole wide world. Success comes from the choices we make every day. Despite all the factors that affect these choices, we need to be persistent in our desire to achieve success. With all the negative force that is against on our success, we also have positive forces that help us achieve success. What we need to do is to strengthen the positive one to guarantee our success. These positive forces are us, our passion, and our support system. Even the negative forces like the standards of society and disapproval of our loved ones, if we make our “back-up” stronger, we have assured our success. Success is our goal; all passion, determination, and effort will get that.

            One of the positive forces that will help us become successful is our passion. All of us have a passion; however, do we really know what passion is? For me, passion is a form of self-representation. It is one of a kind way to represent or show your true self. For Samira, passion “is a desire to do, or accomplish, or feel love without… without any barriers” (Passion Project).  In other words, it is you speaking in your own voice, stating your own opinions or views. It could be about anything. You can say "what I really think about school, work, my whole community or the whole world in general. There are many walls and blockage that prevent us from telling what we really think and feel about a certain issue. For example, I always been told that I am worthless; I only bring evilness in this world. I'm a failure. This is some of the walls that I have to break through in order for me to become who I truly am and to show what I'm all about or passionate about. Chris encounters many challenges to prevent him from achieving his passion. Before going to Alaska, Chris goes around US to see what it’s like. He learns that there are standards or rules that stop him from showing his passion. For example, when he was at Bullhead City, Chris was working in a McDonald’s that makes all “employees have to wear appropriate footwear at all times” (40). Similar rules like this stop Chris or us from pursuing our passion. For Chris, ‘wearing socks’ means you are doomed to failure and that it’s better if you just follow. Chris, for the most part, followed the rules. He played along with society. Like Chris, many students from Chabot College are forced to follow society rules in order for them to achieve their dreams. Emily tells us that “I’ve been in many classrooms where the teacher just teaches and doesn’t interact with the students much” (Passion Project). The standards don’t only apply in work; it also applies in schools too. Schools are also controlled by society; however, we can change this. Schools suppose to be a place where “a thousand possibilities between teachers and students waiting to unfold” (Passion Project). I believe in this quote. Schools should be a place of thousands of possibilities. It should be a place where students and teachers alike can and will make their passion stronger. That should be our goal as one community. We need to help each other build each other’s passion. Some of us might learn about our passion faster than others but we are all special because every one of us has a passion. Let our passion be our manual or guidance that we will use to achieve everything we want.

            For many of us, sometimes, it’s really a struggle to pursue our passion. There are walls that stop us from doing what we love. Sometimes we can break these walls, but sometimes, we can’t. One of these barricades is privileges. We live in the world that has a ranking system among its people. The people in the top of the ranking system have privileges. They have the money, the power, and the fame to do practically anything they want that includes pursuing their passion. Passion and Privilege has a connection; a relationship that very few people see. One of the relationships of Passion and Privilege is availability of opportunities in society. Many of us dream of doing something that will change the world which require hard work, determination, and a little bit of luck. In this world, privilege has a say who and what will make it in the world. Romeo tells us that “society is like not doing its job because it has high expectation for people to follow what other people are doing” (Passion Project). Society, which is completely controlled by privilege, tells us what we can and cannot do. This setback is constantly around to all of us which limit the opportunities we have to pursue our passion. During our childhood, we are encouraged to do whatever we want; it's possible for us to become anything we want to be. However, good things must always come to end. When we reach adulthood, we hear "silly child, dreams are not realistic and no love is not practical; you must work to make money to buy the luxuries that you must have; work even more just to pay to get to work where you could work just to get paid just so you could pay for the things to work. And don't forget ya gotta hurry" (Passion Project). This is a very sad truth. We are constantly by people or things that minimize all the possibilities we can achieve. With privilege, we are told every single day that money or work comes first before anything else. This idea is being drilled into our minds and hearts so we begin to care only for the benefit of a few. This few are the people in power that uses us for their selfish reasons. If we follow the idea of privilege, we begin to lose ourselves; we begin to lose our passion. Privilege is not going to give us opportunities to chase what we want. We need to break away from privilege and make our own chances if we are really serious in following our passion. Passion is our guidelines to happiness. Let’s follow it.

In every battlefield, we have allies and enemies. Then, we have those ‘undecideds.’ These undecided people don’t know where to place themselves between the thin line of privilege and passion. For this essay, our allies are our passion, and our enemies are privileges. Education is the “undecideds” because nobody fully understands the value of education. I can say that education is really important; it is the passport to our brighter future. There are all these ideas of the meaning about education, but do we really know what it is. Education is the truth; the real truth. Constantly, people lie to each other for so many reasons. This is why the world is mess up because people always lie to each other. I’m included the people who lie. We lie because we’re scared; we’re scared of the truth, we’re scared to get educated. For Chris, the truth is all he wants. It all he values. Chris, without any hesitation, says “I'm going to paraphrase Thoreau here... rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness... give me truth” (117). Truth is what makes this world go around. Education is what makes this world go around. From all the technical advances we made to all the silence we created, it’s because of education; we know the truth. Privileges stop the education from spreading because if it gets too big, passion will rule over privilege. The desires of the people will control and change the society using education.  Everyone deserves education. Everyone deserves the truth.

All of us want the truth. All the  people wants to get or to have an education To be more specific, a college education; however, it is very difficult to get one because there are so many deal breakers and setbacks that stop any one of us from achieving this goal. One of these deal breakers is our support system. Many of us have family or friends that tell us it's better for us to immediately start working instead to waste our time studying in school. Sometimes, these people tell us what to do with our lives without considering what we want. In "The Passion Project", several students from Chabot College speak with this experience. One of Chabot students named Karina tells us that "[her parents] rather me be a nurse because they get money or they're in high demand or something and I don't wanna do that" (Passion Project). It is really sad that we don't get the support we need to push on and capture our dreams. Instead, the exact opposite happens. Our family and friends are the ones causing our downfalls in life because they don't agree on what we want or who we are. Other times, the things we want are constantly being put down by the people we love; instead, they push the things we don't want. Another student from Chabot, Romeo, claims that "it's hard for me sometimes because there's something where they expect me to become what they want to become. No one should tell me what to do but um my mom and my dad is trying to do my business in the future and then force me to take it" (Passion Project). Within our own family and community, we are constantly taught that we should think about our future, not what we want or what we are passionate about. If we continue to disregard our passion which makes us who we are as a person, we are going to be robots; we're going to be program to only think and do work for the rest of our lives. I don't want that. I don’t want that at all for us. I want all of us to get what we want; I want all of us to pursue what we are passionate about. The only way to do that is for you to start making allies. Build your own support system that encourages you to pursue your passion, your dreams. Find the truth by getting educated. Education doesn’t only come in textbooks and teachers; it comes everywhere and every one. All you have to do is to listen and to learn. So, let's do it! Together, we can achieve it!

There’s a talk around the world that education only belongs to a few. The few are the people have the money and control in society. I personally find that disrespectful because I strongly believe everyone have the rights to have an education. Everyone has the right to know the truth. I know it’s very weird that I’m all of these and I’m student. I know that I will always have critics; I will always have people telling me bad stuff about myself and my principles. I don’t care. Those critics are just too stupid to realize that I’m speaking the truth, and the truth is education and everyone deserves to know about it. I've always believed that education is the key for a better world. I want every man, woman, child, homosexual, gay, lesbian, and many more to get a great quality education. However, education is being used as a tool to control people when it supposed to be the opposite. Today, in schools, we are taught that we should care more about grades and attendances because it's what going to bring us to a brighter future. Elaine backs up my point when she tells about her past teacher that told the students “oh well you guys failed this first midterm; you might as well just drop the class now; there’s no way, there’s no way” (Passion Project). Elaine’s teacher tells his students that grades are their keys for success. I bet there are more people like Elaine’s teachers because I had a similar experience with Elaine. All I say to all those “teachers”, they are wrong. It's not about grades or attendances. It's about you and realizing the idea that we need you to survive. That’s the biggest truth of them all. Even though many of us don't realize it, we all depend on each other to survive. Everyone is important. That's only thing we should tell people. That should be our motivation, not higher grades or perfect attendances. The world is too messed-up to fix itself. We become divided longer than any one of us will ever know. We need to relax and actually wake up to go to the truth. We need to clean ourselves and open our eyes clearly because the solutions to all our global problems has been right in front of us; we're just too lazy and too selfish for us to actually admit it. Once we take the first step in admitting the truth, everything else will follow. Once the truth is out there and everyone knows about it, we become stronger because we learn more about ourselves and our passion. Our passion will help us succeed in life.

Now, let’s get to the topic that everyone wants to know: success. In this world of modern technology, our lives are really fast. It is believe that if we work fast and precise, then our success will come faster; however, what is success? What is success exactly? Is it a materialistic thing that any one of us can use? Is it a thing that can make our own world perfect? There's no exact definition of success; Success can be anything and it can be seen in so many ways. For some people, success can mean having money; lots of money that they will use for their own satisfaction. Other people believe success reaching happiness in their lives; happiness that is shared with the people they love. Success is all around us. It's just a matter of figuring it out. For me, success is 2 things; faith to God and good relationships with loved ones. I know that achieving all of these things is very difficult; it will be a struggle. I also know that I can't live my life without any of these 2 things. My faith to God and my relationships with loved ones are all very important to me. They all play a very essential role in my life. These roles lead and make my success. As of right now, these things can be my greatest strength or my imperfect weakness. All I know is that in order for me to be successful, I need to have faith to God and good relationships with my loved ones,

My deep faith in God is one of the tools I use to help me to be successful in my daily life. I also consider this tool as part of what it means to be successful in life. I know there's a lot of controversy when it comes to religion or the topic of God. My beliefs are out from all those controversy. I have my beliefs because I experience them. I'm not going to impose my faith to anyone; this is for me. My daily prayers help me calm down and think each and every situation that I encounter in life. In the movie version of “Into the Wild”, Chris went to Salvation Mountain to see what’s out there. Chris met an old man named Leonardo that tells him “God loves us. He really loves us.” For me, it’s really comforting to know that even though there are lots of bad things people tell me every day, there’s someone out there in the Universe that loves me for me. To some people, it sounds like that hallucinating or I just plain crazy. I don’t care. I believe in God because I love Him the way He loves me. Also, I experience some "miracles" of myself with my faith in God. All I know is that everything turns good as long as I have faith in God. That's where my success comes from.

My success is having good relationships with all my loved ones. From super close friends and family in my life to the distant relatives I don’t know about, my friends and my family helps me achieve my definition of success. One of the things that help me succeed is my family. My family is one of the best gifts I've ever received in life and I continue to get that each and every day. I don't know why I have such gift, but whoever gives my family to me, I thank them so much because my family is my rock. I get my strength to succeed from my family. Some of the strengths they give me are the encouraging words they say, the availability of help they bring, and the opportunity to live in a safe, secure home daily. The strength they provide daily to me inspire me to better myself and eventually provide the same thing for my future family. For Chris, it’s unfortunate that he didn’t have a family. His family was torn apart by lies and divorce papers. I think this is the reason why he distanced himself a lot from his family with these adventure trips he have with nature. In the end, he realized, before his untimely demise, that “happiness is only real when shared” (Into the Wild-Movie). I don’t want to wait until I die to return all the favors my family has given me over the years. I can hope I can do the same sooner than later. Through all my accomplishments so far in school and in life, I wish that my family is proud of me to all the success that I have achieved so far in my life. Other thing that helps me succeed is my friends. My friends are some of my biggest supporters of my dreams. They are always there for me especially on the times I need them the most like when I'm down low. They always tell me that I can do anything; all I need to do is to believe in myself the same way they believe in me. Their inspiring words and wisdom motivates me each and every day to go and grab my dreams. I know it will be difficult, but I also know that as long as I have my friends, I can do it! My friends are my backup.

To tell you the truth, I consider myself lucky very each passing day because I have the things that help me succeed in life every day. As I try to achieve all my dreams, help comes from every parts of the world in every ways and forms. For example, my cousin in the Philippines send me letters with encouraging quotes so I'm always in high spirit; she does these things to make me not give up. I miss her. She's been there for me since we were infants. She's my best friend. Sorry, I'm getting too emotional. Okay, back to my point. There are so many things helping me succeed in life. Each tool has a personal meaning to me. Because of all these tools, I’m able to achieve my goals in life little by little. I hope to continue my progress as I try to get bigger and better things in life for what I love: God, family, friends, and the Philippines. These things are all I’m passionate about; these things are going to be my weapons as I run through every roadblock to my success. Most importantly, these things are my future success. My faith in God, my family and friends, and the Philippines will be my greatest accomplishment in my life.

Now that you know my passion, my ideas about education, and some of my secret tools for success, I hope you also got the chance to get to know me better. This is me. I'm just a simple girl with simple wants and needs in life. I want everyone to be safe and happy every day. That's all I want; that's my dream. In order for me to do that, I need to have all these things to help me make my dreams come true. I need to have passion in order for me to know the truth which is true education. If I’m lucky or bless enough, success will come to me with the help of friends, family, and God. Can I do it? We'll find out...