Zavala 1

Hannia Zavala
Mary Martin
Advanced Composition
3 October, 2014

I go through my day everyday believing that I will accomplish my dream and be

successful the thing is I dont know what dream and how. I cant exactly tell anyone what it is,
really all i know is that I want to enjoy life and have a life filled with happiness both emotionally
and financially. I was at the nail salon the other day and my mom asked the guy that was doing
my nails about the Buddha that was right above the welcome desk he went on to tell her that he
symbolizes money and prosperity and that if you pray with your heart, Buddha will listen to you,
he went on to say, hey do not get too excited You will not win the powerball if you pray to
Buddha we could not help but to giggle. He said something really important that i then started
thinking about, he told me and my mom that in life first you want health and then once you are
healthy you go find money. Now that I think about it I realize that growing up we really do not
think about it that way. I mean come on when we were in kindergarten we were getting ready for
elementary, when we were in elementary we were getting prepared for middle school, when we
were in middle school we were making sure we were ready for high school, now in high we are
getting ready for college to we all want to be rich and it is a fact! I am now a senior in high
school that is worried about going to college to then make a lot of money, but i have to stop and
think because it makes me sad that all i am really preparing myself for everyday during school
and after school is money, i feel that ambition could be the death of us all. What the guy at the
nail salon place told me was to strive to be healthy first then work for money, it got me thinking
about my future and for the first time ever i thought how I do not want to end up, instead of how

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I want to end up which is what I usually do. I have come to the conclusion that I do not want to
die rich, sick and sad, I want to die being happy and healthy. I just do not want to keep striving to
be successful in life and forget about my health. I just now hope that we all strive to be healthy
too. Going back to talking about my future I start thinking of college, the final big step before I
accomplish my unknown goal, my lifelong dream of joyful success.
I know that the time for the graduating class of 2015 has come, the time when we all decide and
start applying, the time to get accepted, the time to be successful but most
importantly the time to fail and be rejected the time to look at what we did wrong and apply
somewhere else now that you have learned from our mistakes. Ofcourse I do not want to fail nor
do i want to get rejected from college, but if I do fail I want to be able to learn from my mistakes
to feel bad for a little and then be empowered to take over the world and make my American
dream and live a happy healthy life. My dad told me once if you want to be successful in life
you have to try to be happy. I have started to notice my parents have been the biggest support in
my life. It all goes back to when i was 5 years old and finishing kindergarten, we would go to
California to every year to visit my grandma I remember one time we went in the middle of the
school year and my cousins would speak english and i could not understand what they were
saying so i decided to tell my mom a day before we were returning to mexico that i wanted to
stay in california and learn english. My dad talked to my mom and they decided to let me stay I
was 5 years old and lived in a different country far away from my mom and dad for almost two
years! I look back at it now and admire my courage, my audacity at such a young age! A year or
two ago I was talking to my dad and I asked him " why did you let me live in a different country
when i was only 5 years old" he looked at me and told me that if he didn't let me stay to
accomplish my dream of learning english, he would crush my dream and that he never wants me

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to stop dreaming because I am a person full of dedication and if I want to accomplish anything in
life I will as long as I believe in myself he tells me "Hannia eres grande" meaning hannia you
are great and when he tells me that it reminds me that my mom and dad believe in me, and that
no matter what I do, regardless if it is becoming a garbage truck driver my parents will be there
for me, because they know that what i am doing makes me happy and is my passion. I know that
my parents work really hard to give me, my little sister and brother the life we have and I am
extremely thankful for that. One day I got home really stressed crying complaining about how
school was hard and I felt like I had to much going on He then told me a story I will never forget
When he was growing up my grandpas family would always judge him, because he strived to be
successful and he wanted to go to college, he dreamed of becoming an architect or a historian,
my dad was a young dreamer full of hope for success. He was number one in his school and
always loved playing soccer. When he got to high school he started having a distraction, instead
of going to school he would skip school and go play video games with his friends, it got to the
point where he started failing his classes for skipping school. He then realized that it was time
for a change and although he did not go to college, he founded the Mexican Council for
consumption of Ostrich and opened a ecologic restaurant which allowed him to travel to different
expositions such as Foodex Japan. To this day my dad dreams and works hard for his dream and
thats is why I look up to him. I never did know all the problems he went through as a teenager,
until this night he had never told me his failures, I only knew his accomplishments, but this story
opened my eyes and i realized that failing is not always a bad thing if you get up and keep trying.
I learned that being vulnerable is actually a good thing and that life is not always about being a
strong soldier protected by a metal armour, but about living everyday open to new ideas and full
of acceptance. In my book outliers the story of success Malcolm gladwell talks about if you want

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to become a master of something you must practice it for 10,000 hours and that led me to wonder
if by the time we graduate we all are masters of school! according to the National center for
education statistics by the time we graduate high school we have attended school for about
16,107 hours! I have attended about 14,000 hours of school more than 10,000 and I know that I
am not a master of school, so is this theory true maybe not quite. Ifeel like most of it comes
down to luck! When analyzing successful people and their stories we often find that there was a
key event that set them apart, for example bill gates having the opportunity to sneak out and go
program computers at a university at a very young age. We live in a society today that tells us
that in order to be successful you need to work, but what they do not tell us is that luck is also a
part of it. For example when I had learned english in California it was because of my hard work,
but what really made it all possible was that I was in the right place at the right time. In my
Honors American history class we are learning about the second industrial revolution and the
transcontinental railroad, and how when oil was discovered John.D Rockefeller monopolizes oil
and becomes a billionaire, to this day the rockefeller family is one of the most powerful families
in the world all because of John D. Rockefeller and his luck and vision! Im 17 years old and i am
trying to be lucky, a hard worker and full of vision but it is hard. I go everyday after school and
work 5 out of the seven days of the week. I am starting to wonder who I really am in this school,
am I a nobody or am i actually someone? Do I walk through this hallways unnoticed? I want to
be someone but its hard, being that for the color of my skin i get looked down and asked if i am
illegal! And the truth is that i am not illegal i am a resident alien who naturalized into citizenship,
yes i have double citizenship! I am a citizen of Mexico and of the United States of America!
Growing up .in different cultures has led to me being a very open person who tries to understand
others and their culture! In my ted talk "how to find and do work you love" he talks about how in

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order to explore and find your passion you must understand others and yourself, and it's true
because I have found that staying true to yourself helps you be understanding and it also helps
you stay away from racist stereotypes towards others. Many think that stereotypes are only
towards some races such as minorities , but actually there are stereotypes for every race and it
really frustrates me because it just shows that categorizing people makes us content! When
thinking about stereotypes and judgments I can not help to think of my family on my dads side,
they tend to judge each other a lot for example my grandpas sisters and brothers constantly judge
each others kids. My dad told me a story of when he was in sixth grade that I love! When he was
in third grade he found out that in fifth grade he was going to take a test and and if he got the top
score in his state he would get to meet the President! It was really hard work though if he wanted
to make it he had to study and practice a lot! So he asked his teacher for help and all through
fourth and fifth grade he would go after school 4 days a week to this teachers house and practice
nonstop! The time came and he won statewide he was going to meet the president The part that i
find the most interesting is that he said that his uncles would look down on him and told him that
he would never get to meet the president! He said it made him feel dumb and he almost dropped
out of competition and thought of not showing up to the statewide test, but he decided to go and
he won! My dad was going to meet the president of Mexico! When he finally met him he said
that thats when he realized that his determination was worth it! Although I love to hear this story
and look at my dads picture where he shakes the presidents hand it also sets the bar really high
for me and i did not meet it! I too had the opportunity to meet the president, this summer I had
the privilege to attend Missouri Girls State 2014, and if i wrote a bill and my bill got chosen I
would become a girls nation senator and would go to the white house to meet the president! But
my procrastination killed me, I did not submit the Bill on time therefore I had no chance to go! I

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felt like a complete failure, I felt like i disappointed my dad, I disappointed myself! Lately i have
been frustrated because I used to be great about deadlines and now I struggle with them. Time is
hurting me and as i realize that senior year will be over before I know it I panic and feel scared, I
want to be ready for my future, but sometimes its almost like I am scared of success.

Works Cited

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"Our American Dream: The Janitor Who Invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos." Fox News Latino. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 3 Oct. 2014.

"Time in School: How Does the U.S. Compare?" Time in School: How Does the U.S. Compare?
N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Oct. 2014.