How to Live

When you look back at what you have done, will you be satisfied? Is having kids and watching them grow up to be just like you really what you want for them? Do you feel good going to the same office, sitting in the same chair, and doing the same thing everyday? People spend all their life trying to find what makes them happy, most fail. And once they fail, they put all their hopes and dreams onto their kids.

So is it enough to say you raised your kids well, or that you had a successful life? People who look back at their life and remember their family and friends are missing one thing, the experiences that got them through life. Each and every person has the potential to be great, to be the thing they dreamed about as a kid, but most never lived to their full potential. This article is about those who won’t make it.

Francis is a musician with great talent; he is going to UCONN to become a pharmacist. He is going to spend the rest of his life sitting behind a counter counting drugs and thinking about getting home to his wife, who has an equally boring job. His creative spirit will keep him playing guitar, but the height of his music career will be made in high school, where he organized and ran the schools coffee house (An open mic night sponsored by the school). As time will pass his fingers wont allow him to play guitar and his kids will grow up to get good paying jobs right out of college just as he did.

But what could he have become? He could have continued his love for music and theatre, gone on to do what he actually loves. His life goals have been oppressed by his parents, who want him to be successful, like they were. But they have no sense for the freedom and the lifestyle he craves.

Nathaniel comes from a republican family with strong ties to the military. He has grown up with false devotion to the military that have been brought upon him by tradition. He has spent most of his life dreaming about one thing other then the military, skiing. Skiing has been his outlet to get away from the challenges of real life, a place where he is free. When we are skiing together, we are able to truly enjoy what we are doing and have made memories that we will never forget. He is a unique case, although his family has traditionally be a military family, his father was an outcast, he went to college and now owns his own business, his mom after having several small jobs to keep her busy, finally settled into being a real-estate agent. They did not push him at all to join the military. He believes he is honoring his past relatives and that he has a duty to protect the freedom America offers by putting his life on the line and fighting an invisible enemy.