How My Future Self is My Hero

When we were a child, most of us were asked about who our heroes were, and the usual answers would be our parents or superheroes. We were born to look up to other people, but you know, there’s nothing wrong with looking up to ourselves as well. When I was thinking of a topic for this essay, I turned to Ms. Google for information. ‘Most inspirational speech’ I searched, and as I was searching, I stumbled upon Matthew McConaughey’s best actor speech during the Oscar. There he was looking dapper in his white suit and he starts talking about how he always needs a person to chase in his life, a personal hero to look up to. Someone who is great, someone who would constantly tell him to do better. But what made it more interesting, was that the hero he so desperately chased after was actually his future self all along. After watching the video, I sat there thinking to myself “Wow, I’d love to be my own hero too.” But can I ever be certain that my future self would be someone I’d be proud to call my hero? Who is your hero? If your future self were your hero, what would it take for you to be proud of him? What values would you want him to never compromise? What things and learnings we want him to never forget? For me, the answers to these questions came from the form of three things that I have learned in my life.

These are three things that I want my future self, my hero to never forget. The first one is about seizing opportunities, back in 2014, I once ran for the Supreme Student Government. I wasn’t really supposed to, but one night about a week before campaign period my teacher calls me up and tells me that there was a problem and that the president of the class will not be allowed to run. So, he asked me “do you want to run instead?” I was shocked and so I respectfully asked him to call me back again after a few minutes. After the call I did a very quick situational assessment, so my opponents are very competitive, I’m not a very extroverted person before, I have a lot of exams for that week and I have one week left to prepare. I wanted to try, but I also knew that my chances of winning were not really good. So, when my teacher calls me up again, I was still unsure, but I finally told myself that I’ll just go for it and do my best. And that is the story of how I lost the elections. I tried my best, to win their hearts, their minds, and their votes, but my best just wasn’t enough. It is possible to fail even we try our best and that’s a frightening realization. So, most of us get stuck, waiting for the right moment, waiting for when we feel most ready to do something because of the fear. Truth be told, I also do, but as I grow I have learned, that it is okay to feel scared, to feel inadequate, to ask yourself if you can because at the end of the day what matters is how we recover and react in spite of these thoughts. So, to my future hero, never forget that seizing opportunities means acting despite of fear and not because of it. It is being willed to chase over the possibility of success despite the lingering fear and uncertainty and failure. So, muster up your courage, snatch at every worthwhile opportunity band create possibilities for yourself and for others.

My next point is about purpose. Mark Twain once said that the two most important days of our lives are the day that we were born and the day we find out why. And it’s true, that purpose plays a very important role in our lives. It is like the ways of our existence, telling us how to get to our destinations, even we decide to add a stop in our assisting route or even if we end up making the wrong turn. However, in the process of finding our why’s, know and accept that this will be something that most of us will struggle with. Take me for examples, in the past four years, I have spent half of my time in having fun outside, going out with friends and going home late. I kept myself busy, from the things that are not important. But I realize that I did it probably because I never really knew what I wanted to do in life. This might be the reason why I’m slowly realizing that at the end of it all, the pursuit of goals no matter how big or small will be meaningless without a deeper understanding of why you’re doing it, who you’re doing it for and what difference it will make in the grand scheme of things. So, to my future self, to my hero, never forget to search for your true passion in life. Don’t be content with just staying alive, find something that you want to live for and keep in mind that finding your purpose is not a sprint but a marathon.

My final point is “unlocked”, throughout my life I have realized that I am indeed a lucky person. This realization I would say has had a huge impact to the way I look at the world because when we acknowledge that we can’t fully take credit for our achievements, we are compelled to be humbler in their successes and o be less critical of other people’s shortcomings. Luck means two things for me. First, luck is opportunities and events that happen at the right place at the right time. Luck is being unprepared for the exam then suddenly, classes get suspended. Second, luck is being blessed to have encountered people who shaped and change our lives for the better. Looking back at our experiences we will realize that there were so many people around us doing the little things that helped us achieve our successes in life. So, to my heroes, never forget that you are lucky and remember that even though your successes may seem like your own perfect paintings when viewed from afar, they are actually mosaics or each person around you does a litter part around you to contribute to the overall beauty of those masterpieces.

Bold, passionate, humble these are how I envision my hero to be and these are the three people I want to work on, moving forward as I strive to become the self I want to be in the future. So, let me end this speech by throwing back to you the same question if your future self were your hero what would it take for you to be proud of him? Whatever your answers may be, I hope that you realized by now that the only person who can actually make it happen is you. So be who you want to be and live your own hero.

Works Cited

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