To me, education is a way of life. It is everything to me. I want to be an individual that continues to learn and learn and constantly evolve into a better human being. There are far too many things in this world that I can't comprehend. I want to fix that. I also have lots of personals goals that can't be reached if I don't educate myself and continue to learn. For example, I want to earn a Master's Degree in computer science and eventually become a senior programmer or a tech lead. This dream of mine is unattainable without educating myself. As I am now, that dream would remain a dream if I don't educate myself with the resources I have. As a person, I don't have any outstanding abilities except for my ability to learn. To be honest, the only thing that I can proudly say I am good at is studying. For the most part of my life, I have studied, either to excel academically or to learn about things that interest me that I don't know about. It could be something as simple as learning how to make scrambled eggs or something as complex as solving a quadratic equation. Man is but a reed, the feeblest one in nature, but he is a thinking reed, famous wise words by Blaise Pascal. Man is a reed that can learn, man is only strong and was able to come this far and continue to go far because man is able to make observations of things, write them down for later generations, and evolve our way of thinking. Human beings, myself included are only unique, and important because we have brains capable of education. By educating myself, I am able to aspire for higher things and aim for higher heights. Look at humanity, we were never born with wings but we were still able to fly to the moon. With education, nothing is impossible.

Fear. I have been afraid of a lot of things ever since I was a kid. The fears that have always kept a hold on me ever since I was little are people and criticism. I always stayed indoors as a kid, my life was very routined. I would wake up, eat breakfast, go to school, come back home, eat dinner, do my homework, watch movies, and that was it. I wasn’t a people-person as I barely spoke and told people what was on my heart. I never told anyone how I felt even if I wanted to because I didnt know how to. There were times when I wanted to say something but I just couldn’t because if I tried to, my hands will start shaking, and I will keep stuttering and end up embarrassing myself. The only people I could talk to normally were people I was extremely familiar with like my mom. I was always worried about how I look in people’s eyes because they would always say that I am too quiet, dull, timid, and boring. I didnt like myself being that way, as a matter of fact, I hated myself, a lot. There were times when I saw people speak up and act outgoing in public and I would wish that I was born with a personality like theirs. The situation kept on deteriorating as I grew up. I thought that maybe I would change as time went on but that didnt happen. Thirteen years old, and I was still the same shy and timid boy. When it was time for classroom presentations like poems and the sort, my hands would still shake and my heart would keep on thumping. I hated it so I started doing research on how to get over social anxiety. I found tons of websites that provided methods and strategies for social anxiety. I tried them for several months but they didnt take me anywhere. I started to ponder on about my situation more and more. My mom realized that something seemed off about me so she asked me to sit at her bedside one day and we had a deep conversation about myself. She said I was just like my dad, always trying to be alone and far too self-reliant. She was worried and a bit mad that I didn’t ask her for help. I learned a lot of things from her that night but the one that stayed with me was that I should always stay true to myself because I can only change if I truly desire it from the bottom of my heart and not because I want to meet society’s expectations. She said she wished that she could have raised me differently so I wouldn’t be feeling the way that I was feeling but she couldn’t because if she did, then she would have forced me to be someone I wasn’t. It was getting late so she ended the conversation and told me to go to sleep, as I was heading out, she told me to try and talk with people more, even if it ends up being awkward, I should keep on trying to talk to people until I can do it naturally without having to think. The next day, I decided to put on my to-do list Talk to 10 people a day. I would go to school and try to start conversations with people, at first it was very bad, I would just end up blurting random words and make the atmosphere super awkward. It took time but I eventually got better at it and now I can communicate and socialize normally. Being honest, I still get anxious when I am around people but it’s noticeably better. I can speak to others without stuttering all the time, although I still tend to talk less but that’s just how I am.