This is my first writing assignment for my English 101 class. We were told to talk about certain aspects of our life and what makes us who we are in general and in each day.
My mother has always been interested in history and so naturally she has lead my brother and I through the United States to all sorts of history wherever we could find it. I tended to excel in the history classes I took but I always found the Italian Renaissance to be the most magnificent, at least for me. They sought improvement in life, mastered the art of perfection, and then improved that. So when I am asked what I want to do with my life I’m reminded that I have too little time in this life.
Being the optimistic person I am I find comfort in that conclusion in that it’s better to have plenty of options, then none at all. Yet my eyes are too hungry and I set my sights on many fields: Architecture, environmental law, public service, art, writing, screenwriting, and then my hobbies: backpacking, rock climbing, physical fitness, reading, playing the guitar or any instrument, and understanding politics. And from this ideal of the Renaissance man, I take it further and obsess over mastering each of them just like Leonardo da Vinci who could pick up an entirely new skill and become a master of it. There’s so much that appeals to me because when I like something I see, I’m never satisfied with just that, but I become obsessed with replicating my own innovative version of whatever it was I just came across.
As of now, I am majoring in English writing. I like this major because it’s good for life, will help me if I chose to go to school, or help me if I chose an MFA program for screenwriting or something related to that. I was minoring in political science to help me with law school, but as of yesterday I switched to a minor of art. Last Sunday I saw a magnificent home in Pasadena, California built in 1908 by Charles and Henry Greene called The Gamble House. It exemplified the attention and perfection of every detail where form truly follows function. And so my architectural interests were revived once again as they have been so many times since I first though about what I would be when I grew up. While Gonzaga does not have an architecture program, studying art will give me adequate satisfaction until the chance that I go to an architecture school for my masters.
Yet, I’m still growing up and so my mother reminds me that I have so many opportunities to be fortunate for and that I’m at a pivotal time in my life. She says I need to keep and eye on the future, but to focus on living in the moment and in what will soon become ‘the good old days.’ I understand what she is saying, and so I try to remember that advice and to control my obsession over life’s opportunities and to learn to accept what it gives me at the moment. What I can remember, is that I know whatever I do, I will be good at it and I will be happy with it. I’m confident in my ability to form new and creative architectural ideas, my ability to get the most out of being a lawyer for the protection of the environment, and my ability to be creative and highly communicative in my writing.
In the book I am reading right now, Bill Clinton’s autobiography “My Life,” he says that life is not only shaped by the opportunities you accept, but also by the ones you don’t accept. As Bill Clinton took guidance from Abraham Lincoln’s saying “I shall study and get ready, and perhaps my chance will come” I will remember this too.
