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Over two and a half years ago I started to volunteer at the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. I started out of guilt as I had lost another job and I had thought that I needed to punish myself for some reason. Nico, my “Little”, taught me a lot about life just by spending time with him. He is a smart kid with a bright future and I learned one major lesson when I was with him. That lesson was that it is not about me when he is asking questions that I have never been asked before. It was about what I thought he needed to learn from that question. Now, fast forward to two and a half years later; I have found the perspective that I yearned for without even realizing it. I realized that I was teaching myself how to grow up as I was answering Nico’s question because it wasn’t about me in that moment, it was about what Nico needed to hear so that he could learn from the question. In those moments, I caught myself thinking about myself at first in my head, but then as I stalled, it came to me that I needed to be there for him as a mentor. It wasn’t until after my girlfriend and I decided to move abroad to follow my newfound purpose of giving in life that I realized this perspective fully. Now, I am pursuing teaching as my career because of this inspiration given to me by Nico with the time he spent with me and those questions that he asked me. The curiosity Nico embodied led him to those questions and in return helped me understand why I believe in teaching as a career. I believe that life is about giving and when you’re giving or sharing, you’re more fulfilled. This time with Nico was hopefully time well spent for him too and I believe that he learned a few things from me too as I hope the relationship was symbiotic. I have long believed in embodying a positive mental attitude and have shared with my parents that I believe I have now found my purpose in life. I believe my purpose in life is to give, love and set goals. I created and wrote down 5 year goals at 25 that I never thought I would achieve until I actually achieved them 5 years later. Through all the trials and tribulations, I struggled at times to keep a positive attitude. However, I stuck to it through losing multiple jobs and following my life long dream to move to California during that same period. Now that I am 30, I have made a new set of goals with my girlfriend. Together we took the time to discuss our dreams and ambitions. As they came to us, we wrote them down on a piece of paper. Finally, through many weeks and many discussions we came to an agreed deadline of when we believe we should officially write these goals down. We agreed to write them down exactly two weeks after we had officially made the trip to Vietnam, where we decided our new journey of giving would start. The conclusion we came to was that goals should not just be financial so we decided to make our goals more balanced and this time we included health and fitness goals too. This is very exciting for us, however the best part about this is that it is not about us anymore as part of our goals is to have kids one day in the next five year. So this next set of goals will be more about them. Without the time spent with Nico, I can not say definitively that things would be the same so I end this with a thank you to my friend Nico for being there for me as I hope you felt that I was there for you too!
