The Importance Of Following Your Passion
Have you ever felt that your life was shaped by someone’s dream? But what if living somebody’s dream is not that bad after all? That even though you’re ok and glad about whatever decisions were taken those decisions were not yours. Well, I have experienced that.
At my last year of high school back in my country Venezuela, I was offered the best opportunity to move to a safer country where I could have better opportunities. In Alex Honnold’s video called “The Ascent of Alex Honnold” and Amy Tan’s short story “Two Kinds, ” this two characters one fictional Jing-Mei and the other real Alex Honnold represent what I felt and still feel in my life. At first, I felt like Jing-Mei pushed and demanded by my parent's decision, but now I feel free and complete as Alex Honnold up there on top of the mountains. Even though at the being I wasn’t completely sure about moving to another country, now I know that I would have regretted not accepting the opportunity my parents offered me.
People talk about adventure all the time, and how amazing is taking the risk to try. However, people don’t talk about the uncertainty that comes with it. Moving to another country is the biggest adventure and the most rewarding of all the decisions I ever mad, but it also has been the one that made me feel the biggest uncertainty in my life. Not knowing what would happen is not pretty, but who said those good decisions were. A week before I came to the U. S, I wasn’t even convinced of coming because I was just a 17-year old girl. When I was 17, I just wanted to be a teenager, and do silly things as all teenagers do, but my parents decided for me that moving to another country alone was the best thing that could happen to me. Therefore, they made all the arrangements. They pay an intensive English program that would make me speak the language in just nine months. Also, they rent an apartment for me to be comfortable and near to the school, and that was just the begging. A few days before I came, I experienced an armed assault. For this reason, my whole life change. I am not the same teenage-girl whom I used to be anymore. Life hit me, and it did it hard because that experience made me grow in so many ways. Therefore, the decision my parents made start to look better for me. I was the one counting the days to move to the U. S and feel safe again. I feel that life gave me a lesson. There are times when taking risk is worth it, and this was one of those.
The short story “Two Kinds, ” written by Ami Tan has this particular way of showing how some parents want to take their children’s decision. The principal character Jing-Mei face as I did this dilemma of doing what you want and disappoint your parents or doing what your parents want you to do and make them proud. As Jing-Mei’s mom dream was a prodigy child, my parent’s dream was for me to study abroad. Being a prodigy wasn’t Jing-Mei’s dream, and study abroad wasn’t mine. “You want me to be someone that I’m not!”. In brief, that shows just how desperate she was because she was doing something that she didn’t want to. I felt the same way because the decision of moving to the U. S wasn’t mine to make; my parents just made it for me. At the end Jing-Mei ends being what she wants, but what would it happened if she didn’t experience all this with her family. Comparatively, what would’ve happened to me if I’ve stayed in my country? Would I’ve safe back there? Would I have gotten the opportunities that I have now? I know that I would have regret staying in my country where not having the chance make people stagnate, and it would make the same with me. On Alex Honnold’s video is the opposite of the short story “two kinds” because he’s doing what he wants and following his passion. Now I’m in this country free and full of opportunities doing what I want I how I want it. Of course, this wasn’t what I wanted at the beginning, but now I’m happy living others dream that ended up being mine too.
In Alex’s video, he talks about how nice the view is when he’s up on top of the mountains, and he expresses how free he is living in a minivan and doing what he wants. “I can go anywhere, tomorrow morning I can drive to the East Coast and climb there the next two months”. I’m going all over the country climbing mountains. However, I can go out if I want to, and I’m not scared that someone will attack me with a weapon and take all belongings. In other words, that my freedom. Alex Honnold story is what I’m related now that time has passed, and I’m with this decision.
