I would not believe myself to be wrong in inferring that we can all say something along the lines of, "My father is the kindest man I have ever known." What we forget is that kindness may take many different forms to many different people. A haughty example, not to offend, would be a father giving his 16-year old daughter a Porsche for her birthday. Maybe in such family dynamic, this was seen as a genuinely nice gesture. On the other side of things, a single mother tells her little boy that the tooth fairy will bring him a quarter if he puts his tooth under his pillow. The little boy wakes up with two whole dollars from the tooth fairy for going to bed so well. This is seen as a very kind gesture. What I am trying to point out, both of these families see this kindness equally applied in their own lives. The disparity between poor and wealthy often causes conflict due to the misunderstanding of jealousy and hatred stemming from pure ignorance. This ramble aside...
My father truly is the kindest man that I have ever known. If I had the choice to pick any man in the world as my father, I'd laugh at the question and say that I already have the best one. I won't be receiving a Porsche anytime soon, and frankly I'd be pretty mad if I did. My younger brother is set on Harvard or MIT and my youngest brother set for a career in football. WHY THE HECK WOULD I NEED A PORSCHE when a $600 truck I bought on the side off the road with only 50,000 miles on it works just fine? I've only lately learned the importance of putting my family first, and this has come at a very large price.
When I was accepted to NYU, I immediately pressed accept. I didn't call my parents, or my father. I had just immediately pressed a button that was saying that I agreed to pay $70,000 for one academic year. What you'd expect, the first thing he said was Öh crap. That's expensive." Even if you doubled that number, our family still makes several thousand less than that a year, which to many, is A LOT of money, but in this case, it's over half our yearly earnings. I didn't realize what this was going to do to my family, and frankly, I feel guilty.
A lot of us take the fact that we are given the chance to go to college for granted. We even skip classes just to sleep in because we are lazy or stayed up too late watching Netflix. We skip class. Saying the base tuition for NYU was $45k at the time, and I was taking 8 classes my freshman year, that comes out to be about $5,600 PER CLASS. At a state school, that'd be all I'd pay for the year, and I am still reluctant to admit that going to a state school was the right choice for my family. Don't take your classes for granted. Even if you're on a full-ride at Harvard, there's a student next to you in your Bio-Chem lecture that is working three jobs overnight, whose parents are barely getting by just so that their child can have the best education possible. That student WANTS to be there. You need to WANT to be in your classes. Because honestly, why the hell are you here if you don't want to make the most out of your education?
I take for granted all of the comforts in my life that I don't feel that I deserve. My father has been working extra weeks lately just to support our family. I go home and I see my baby brothers and I know that they are looking up to me, to succeed. I have their eyes on me; I'm their big sister; they're watching. Even if nobody else gives a darn, there's always one person who cares with all of their heart. There is a reason you chose to go to college. There is a reason you're here. Thank your parents every single day, and don't tell them all your regrets in choosing a particular school, if I may share a personal story. I don't particularly like going to a school without a real campus, or sports teams, and well, most importantly for a southern girl, a D1 Football Team. I imagined standing in the student section with paint on my face and tailgating with my best friends until the wee hours of night. I have to accept that I didn't chose this route. I chose to go to NYU. I picked NYU. This was my decision and I wasn't pressured into choosing it. I applied for majors I now realize are not right for me. College changes you; strengthens your confidence in yourself, and allows you to find something you can be passionate about. Take advantage of everything your school has to offer, if not for your parents, for you. You have only FOUR years to live at this University, and a University can be a magical place if you let it be. Sit in the stacks at the library and read random books. Go to the random visiting lectures about topics you're not really sure interest you or not. Go to the club even if you don't want to. This is your last chance to really screw up and be able to find yourself all over again.
After these four years pass, most of us will be on our own. Daddy's money will go away, whether we were living in penthouses or shoebox apartments. We take advantage of the littlest privileges in our lives. These are as simple as our ability to learn, our ability to have an abundance of food, an ability to be surrounded by people in the same boat as you. Our privileges aren't the same, and they won't feel the same. But, taking advantage of something you feel has just been given to you is wrong. I have ended up feeling guilty for being so comfortable here at college; my stupid homey things I just couldn't live without. I don't need all this, and yet I just assume it will always be here.
My father truly is the kindest man on earth. He doesn't yell unless I've really gone and screwed it up. He doesn't try to rub it in my face everyday how expensive my school is and how hard it has been. Somehow, he manages to support me, and love me just as much as he always did; that's what fathers are for. I can no longer see myself being entitled to anything. Hard work is the only way to receive As, and well why would we be here if we didn't want to succeed?
