As a philosophy major, this is a question I ponder often. What is the meaning of life? Surely it cannot be to pay taxes and die, as the joke goes. Whether we’re here by happenstance or by design, we’re here, and we have the awesome opportunity to enjoy this beautiful planet with the full spectrum of sensational life with which we co-exist, from the imperceptible to the enormous, the simple to the complex. The meaning of life is to live! I do not mean to simply exist as living beings, but to encounter the world and leave it and our fellow humans better for our experiences. Traveling to remote corners of our planet is an adventure, but it is not enough to set our eyes and feet upon such places. To create and undergo the most profound experiences, we must meet the people, hear their stories, and discover the needs they have, serving them whenever possible. The sometimes harsh reality is we do not have an infinite amount of time on this planet. All but a few of us have names which will not be written in books, learned by future generations. If we’re lucky, our names will be recorded in family histories, and that is the extent to which we will be remembered as our individual selves. This reality often leads to the belief that who we are and what we do don’t ultimately matter. This is a false belief. If we truly live and if we fulfill our duties of love and kindness to our planet and fellow humans, the effects of our lives will be our legacies, even if no one remembers our names. That’s the ultimate meaning of life, to leave the future better for our having lived it.

Having been economically disadvantaged in my childhood, I know firsthand the importance and significance of kindness and generosity being extended by people within my community. The experiences of my youth formed the foundation upon which my desire to help others was built and provided the lens through which I view the whole of humanity. Others saw my family as human beings with intrinsic value and did what they could to provide for us that which would have otherwise been out of reach for us, a family living in the periphery. I’ve taken my experiences and the lessons learned from them out into the world, seeking to create a better world to the best of my ability. I know a better world won’t be created accidentally; it requires intentional effort and a willingness to love others, endowing everyone with the most abundant resource this planet has: kindness. As Immanuel Kant would say, we have the obligation to always treat all people as ends in themselves, never as means. To that end, I have devoted countless hours to volunteer in my community, currently as a tutor with the Adult Literacy League in Orlando, Florida. As a full-time first generation college student and homeschooling mother, the time I have available to volunteer must be spent in the most impactful way possible, and I believe helping adults learn to read is among the most impactful things I can do. I have also volunteered at hospitals, with the Special Olympics and the Autism Society of Greater Orlando, mentoring teenage girls who are pregnant, with Rehumanize International, tutoring in the Orange County, FL school system, volunteering at the Coalition for the Homeless, and organizing fundraisers for local food shelters. Receiving this scholarship will help me continue doing my part to make the world a better place.