The Story of My Upbringing

The environment in which a child grows up in is a reflection of a child’s behavior, personality, and even their convictions. While biology plays a major part in defining who we are as individuals, I learn towards valuing nurture over nature when defining how I came to be who I am. In growing up, I’ve learned that my parents have raised me in a place of stability. Although divorced, both my mother and my father would work cooperatively with each other to ensure that I felt compassion on both ends. Growing up in separate households as an only child has helped to mold me into an independent thinker — someone who keeps to themselves amidst the crowd but isn’t afraid to make themselves heard by spreading new ideas. Both my mother and my father serve as a core pillar in my life in their own unique ways. From the places they’ve came from to the ways they carry themselves to how they continue to shape my future, my parents have built me from the ground up.

Moving forward, I prefer to focus on what I wish to become. I tend to focus on my weaknesses and ponder on how I can make them my strengths. Although I’ve always excelled in academics based on the standards pre-established for me, I have come to understand that those with more talents will always exist. I understand that challenges I have faced and overcame pale in comparison to what awaits. My parents, on the other hand, held me to a high regard within their expectations. From when I was younger, I made it clear that I had a major interest in science, technology, engineering, and math. I would always gravitate towards science kits and other little trinkets that weren’t necessarily toys, and my parents took my basic interests as a sign of the direction I would go in life.

Especially during my pre-teenage years, my father has given me a multitude of stern lectures. These lectures covered a variety of topics, but if I had to assign them an unifying theme, I would say that they addressed my tendency of being ungrateful or even selfish. He gave me these talks when I fail to do any chores for an extended period of time or when I fail to show further initiative around the house. I believe that these talks did not simply come out of a place of frustration but of love, as he would constantly remind me of the harsh conditions of his upbringing, the fact that there were times when he had no one except himself and his faith, the fact that he earned degrees at Calarts and Loyola Marymount University despite him growing up with elders deep in alcoholism. Over time, his monologues helped me to put my life in perspective. Compared to him and other people alive today, I have it all. That is why, even through my weaknesses, I must become something that isn’t a waste of everything that has been poured into me.

By being around those like my father, I have adopted a mentality that I am better than nobody who has a goal or a certain drive, regardless of their inherent abilities. This has led me to surround myself with driven individuals throughout my secondary schooling thus foster an environment away from home where I can push myself further.