Gabrielle Alwi
March 5, 2014
English 1121- D428
Personal Narrative First Draft
Generally Observing a Life Style
For everyone who wants to be successful it is best to have goals. A goal is defined as an aim or a desire. It can also be a destination of journey. Everyone should have a goal. Goals can be long, short, temporary, or even for over a lifetime. I make goals to help myself work harder and aim higher. I believe in short term goals because they’re simple to achieve and they make me plan another goal, which is very beneficial. All my life people have judged me about how I grew up, what I have, or even about my ideas. I also set standards to make me better than I was before. I want to be a better person day after day, and I know I will need to face challenges. Dealing with challenges is part of having goals. There’s always the road bump or stumbling block in every situations; I always face them and it always appears in every goal I try to achieve. The goals in my life, reflects from my parent’s history, standards in my life, and the challenge’s I face.
My parents are from Indonesia and came to America in the early 1990’s. My dad traveled around the world during his life; he was a sailor and when he met my mom they moved to America and started a family here. For them moving to America and starting a family was a big step because it was a challenge. My dad had a rollercoaster childhood. Throughout his early life, he struggled financially and his surroundings didn’t seem to help. The struggles he went through when he was young reflects on how he acts now and also reflects on me. Sometimes I see my dad as a motivation because I want him to live better than he was when he was young.
Before moving to America with my dad, my mom was a young lady who just worked hard in her small town. My mom did not go to college because in Indonesia, college is very expensive and most of the parents in town could not send their children to college. My mom is very humble hearted and all her life she had to sacrifice. She is one of six and she is middle child. My mom couldn’t achieve her career because she did not go to school. Every time I am tired or frustrated with my work, I try to remind myself that I should be grateful for what I have and for where I am. My parents should be the one in my shoe but instead they want me to be an example of what they could have done.
Moving to America, my parents did not know English. They moved to Woodside and they had to adapt to what was around them. Instead being barefooted, wearing shorts all the time, and burning garbage outside, they had to adapt to the American culture and go along with it. My brother was born in 1992, and I was born in 1995. From the start my parents pushed my brother and I to work hard and aim high. My parents always had high expectation for both us since we were little and even until today, they push and encourage my brother and I to work even harder. They wanted a better life, living in Indonesia was dangerous and it was hard to survive there so, they always push us to work hard. I don’t remember my exact childhood but I had what I needed. I wasn’t spoiled, or a “brat,” I was the normal kid that was into music. Since I was four, I have been very into music, and so my parents supplied me with instruments from a drum set to several guitars. From there I knew what my hobby was. I knew I had a passion for music, and I wanted that to be my goal.
I didn’t know there were rankings or levels in this life. Growing up, especially in high school, people thought of things different and I realized that they had their own standards in ways of thinking. I had friends who took things more serious than others. I also had friends who prioritize certain things more than others. When it came to me, I realized I didn’t have standards. I didn’t know what to expect when things came. Throughout my four years of high school, I learned a lot and did things differently. Entering high school very dumbfounded. I did not know what to do when it came to making friends. All my life, I was very quiet and did not make “best friends.” I wanted to make friends who can help me in my studies and also hang out with me during free times. I did not know if friends would be a factor into reaching my goals.
All my life, I always had two sets of friends. My school friends, and my church friends were the people that always around me. Both of them had different standards in life; even within each group there were standards among my individual friends. Growing up my parents always told me to watch out when it comes to making friends. My parents wanted the best for me, and with that always in my mind, I always pick and choose the people I talk to. Having two sets of friends, at first I thought it would be confusing to have different standards but everyone has different standards. I knew I had to find myself and figure out what is my standard in order to work hard and achieve my goals.
Having my own standards does not make me a better person than others. It just means I set a limit in my life differently than others. People can take this seriously or immaturely. When I set goals, I also have to see if I am capable of doing it due to my limitation. I always want the best for me and especially for my family, but sometimes with the standards I have, I cannot always give them the best. What I can give is the best outcome people can receive. Sometimes friends or family see things in a different way. I told myself I wanted to this a certain way, or I expected from my friends certain things because I had standards. Setting standards helps me set my goals because it motivates me and reminds me who I am and where I came from.
Without challenges in my life, I don’t seem to learn anything. I face challenges everyday of my life. At first it didn’t seem that I was facing anything, but after awhile I realized, now I face them automatically. I don’t put myself into one, it just happens. Different types of challenges happen each day and it is my responsibility on how to take it. If I do face it and face away, I will never learn and I will never grow mentally. Challenges are helpful to me because it helps me figure things out and I get to learn more about life.
Being in Asian in a diverse society, I always try to be the different one. I live in a very tough neighborhood. My neighborhood is very dangerous and everyday I wake up and tell myself, another day, another challenge. My friends told me that my family should move out of the neighborhood because it’s a very bad neighborhood and we could get influenced or harmed. With the right mindset, instead of getting influenced by our surroundings, my family and I changed the surroundings. We did not change a lot but we change something. Through out the eight years we’ve been living in the Woodside City Housing, a lot of things changed. For example, everyone respects each other and show manners to one another. Everyone there knows about my family and they know what we are capable of. Challenges can be frightful but because my family had the right mindset, we accomplish something that we did not think we could do.
Most of my challenges turn into goals, and it seems difficult at first, but I approach things as a goal, not a challenge. I see them in a different perspective. I learned to analyze things before responding to them first. For example, learning how to make new friends or learning how to keep a conversation going are to be difficult. If they are a challenge for me, I try to set them to be my goals. Some challenges I can’t face on my own, therefore the friends I trust the most that make me a better person help me accomplish them. These challenges are helpful in my life and even though they are time consuming and requires lots of sacrifice, at the end I look back at them and see that if I did it once, I could do it twice.
Any body can set goals, but to achieve them and reach them is something else. Reaching my goals makes me realize how hard I work and how focused I am in achieving the goals I set. It takes a lot of making changes and adjustments and even sacrifice in the journey of reaching one goal. Goals can be short term or long term. Goals are meant to be achieved over time and cause a person to be proud of the accomplishment. I have many goals in life. Since I just started college last semester, the standards have been raised higher and the types of challenges have changed again.
