For as long as I can remember, my father would always remind me to make my bed. As a younger child, I would always wonder “Why does it matter? I’ll mess it up the next night!” Despite my doubtful attitude to his daily request, he never told me why, he just continued to require the making of my bed. Another thing I always had a hard time understanding was why my father always got up so early. My dad would religiously wake up at 6:30 every morning. “Why?” I’d ask. This time he was less reluctant to share. “I like to get an early start to my day.” Still, I remained confused as I saw no value in starting your day early as no one else is awake. Once I was a little older and school began giving me homework, I had deja vu as my dad tried to instill another habit in me, just as he had years before with making my bed. Every day once I arrived home, he would sit down with me and go over what homework I had in each class and made me do it first thing. I would always throw a fit, trying to explain that I am exhausted from the seemingly endless day of middle school. Despite my best efforts to derail his idea to do homework immediately after school, his opinion remained the same. After a few weeks of the homework situation, I began to understand and even enjoy the timely manner of the process. The value being that, if I do my work first thing then I will have nothing hanging over my head and will have my much needed freedom the rest of the day. Over time, I developed a habit of getting tasks done early, one day I even woke up early to get ahead on my work because I knew I had a busy day. I began to learn the lesson of why waking up early was valuable and why my dad did it so much. As I grew older, I would go in and out of phases of a strict habitual lifestyle where I would promptly wake up and make my bed each morning at around the same time. I would continue with a similar breakfast each morning containing all the sources of nutrients I needed. However, I still had gaps of time where I would do the opposite. I would wake up later, put things off, sometimes I would even skip breakfast. I always felt much better when I was practicing a strict habitual routine compared to having no aim for what I wanted my day to look like. “It is hard to stick to things that take more effort, but in the long run it is worth it, the hard work pays off.” Is what my dad used to tell me as a kid when I’d press him for too long about why I should bother making my bed. I never quite understood what he meant until I realized the great things that come with a lifestyle that resembles the habits and values my father helped instill inside of me.
I am determined
I am determined don't stand in my way you cannot block my path I will run you over you will only fuel my drive don't try me for it makes me stronger It was a frigid but sunny Monday afternoon as I began walking home from school with my friend Josh. We had just gotten off of the bus that brings us as close as possible to our houses, as we are neighbors. However on this stroll, we realized every tree in the forest we cut through to reach our neighborhood is completely frozen and could snap in half with the smallest push since most of the trees were dead as well. Soon, the next thing you know we were pushing over trees yelling “TIMBER!!” Nothing compared to the feeling of shaking trees over, I felt stronger with every tree down. As a 14 year old boy I felt on top of the world. After I had been going at it for a while, my eyes settled on a tree with a very thick trunk but a large gash about 12 feet up that made the tree look as if it was a loose tooth hanging on the last thread of nerve. So naturally I approached the giant and began to shake. Within seconds I heard a large snapping sound, I quickly looked up to see only the top half of this monster tree plummeting toward the ground, on track to hit me. My instincts kicked in and in the split second I had to dodge the plummeting tree top, I was lucky enough to evade death by an inch. However, after realizing how close I had just come to death, I was not bothered and decided to push over a few more smaller trees for closure and then after the last five minutes of pushing over the skinniest frozen dead trees, I decided to finish the walk home with my friend who had not seen my near death incident. After arriving home my body was still pumping with adrenaline from the tree almost severing me like a kabob. For the rest of the night I struggled to have my mind think of anything but the experience I had gone through only hours ago. During the next few days, the scene of me almost dying continued to replay in my head and I just kept thinking how cool it was, not about how close I was to almost dying and how scary that is and what I should do to be more careful. Even after the tree experience, and clearly learning nothing from it, the next weekend I decided to put myself in yet another dangerous situation resulting in a trip to the emergency room.
Something you should know is that…
When I was younger I loved trains. I’d love to walk to the train tracks near my house, I’d sit and watch the trains go by, I’d wonder what cargo is so important that it must travel by train opposed to a car or plane? Trains must get to their destination faster than cars since there is no traffic, And faster than planes as they also have runway traffic and weather to account for. Not to mention trains don't seem to have a speed limit either. I always was fond of the important nature of all trains. Perhaps that is why my drive for greatness is so strong, Because while I was young I was influenced by the trains and their strict time schedules, As well as their precious cargo that people were relying on the train to deliver on time, And as weird as it sounds, I want to be as important as a train. .I wanted to highlight these words because they truly represent what 2021 should be all about. There have been a few things that influenced these words, for example 2020 as a whole was an influence, the Presidents inaugural address was also an another influence
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AuthorMitchell "Mitch" Chermak is a senior at Okemos Highschool |