My mother owned a fabric store and she would work very hard
and she would close the store in the afternoon to make us food,
and then she would return from the store at 7 p.m. And when she
would come she would wash the floor, she would do things in the house,
and then I remember it would be like around 8:30 or nine when
she would finish everything and she would sit on a chair on the balcony
and smoke a cigarette. And when you would look at her doing it, you would feel
such an upward a feeling of joy. Like she said, “Wow, life is so amazing.”
–ETGAR KERET

INNER CITY STORIES

I believe that inspiration is one of the most important things to have in life. In my eyes inspiration is the key to everything. Now there are two types of inspiration, there’s positive inspiration and there’s negative inspiration. What I mean is that people have inspiration to do positive things and people have inspiration to do negative things. I myself have lots of positive inspiration to reach my goals, something I think everyone in this world should have.

The first thing is you need goals. My main goals in life are to make my family proud, finish high school, go to college, get a good job, and eventually start my own family. I find inspiration for my goals everywhere, whether it be looking up to my parents or maybe even just watching TV -- inspiration for me is everywhere. I also find inspiration from my grandparents. My grandparents lived in a small poverty stricken farm town and worked from before sunrise until after sunset in the sugarcane fields trying to make a living. Once they had saved up enough money they had the courage to leave their gigantic family behind and move themselves, my mom, and my aunt all the way to New Britain. After they arrived my grandfather began working 2-3 jobs and my grandmother worked at a factory with horrible working conditions just so they could provide for my mom and my aunt. My mom says the reason they worked so hard was because they refused to go on welfare or receive help from the state. This allowed both my mom and aunt to get college degrees later on and both get good paying jobs. It just amazes me how my grandparents did all that while facing a language barrier, no other family members, and trouble with finances -- they were still able to persevere and provide for their family. I am thankful for that because without them I probably wouldn’t be here right now and probably wouldn’t be living this good of a life. So whenever I feel like giving up or feel like I can’t do something I just think about them and all the things they had to go through; it just inspires me and gives me the push to achieve my goals.

Inspiration is also a big part of me playing sports. Inspiration allows me to get better every day. I get inspiration from everything; one main source of inspiration for me is my dad. He played varsity football for NBHS back in the day and my goal next year is to start on varsity as well. I also get inspiration from watching professional athletes on TV, or just seeing other varsity players or even coaches. One varsity player that inspired me is Zach Connolly because he is in my opinion the best linebacker in our school; he received a season ending injury his senior year but was still on the sidelines being a leader. This helped me realize that even though I might not be on the field with my teammates due to an injury I can still help my team from the sidelines. All these people and things inspire me every day to be the best at every sport and every position I play. My overall goal in playing sports is to be able to get a partial or maybe even a full scholarship to college.

The problem with our world today is that people have little or no inspiration, and there are a lot of people with negative inspiration. What I mean by negative inspiration is that people are inspired by negative people. For example, there are kids who feel more inspired to have all the girls or be known as the “bad ass” rather than being inspired to get an education and set up a life for themselves. That is just one example of having negative inspiration; there are a whole lot of people inspired to do negative things. Another huge issue is that people who have no inspiration at all have almost no goals in life. Now this kills me because I see kids every day and it sucks knowing that in four years these same kids probably won’t be walking the stage with everyone else. This might sound crazy but I believe it's not completely their fault. The main reason for their lack of inspiration is they constantly get put down by lots of people; sometimes even teachers do it to kids. Another major problem is that there is no support coming from home. In my opinion if the parents don't care why should the kids? And that's the way some of these kids think. Due to this I think it's society's obligation to help push these kids, give them that support, and inspire these kids to do well and make a life for themselves. I believe that if you're inspired anything is possible.