My Personal Heroes (Revised)

My personal heroes are a big part of my life and how I develop into the person I am and to still be. I have chosen to describe why my parents are the biggest heroes of my life. Consistent positive influence throughout my life, being wonderful parents and helping me with my struggles in my religion have become the three main reasons why my parents are my heroes. When drugs and alcohol came into my life, my parents were there to keep me from getting into it, when I wanted to hang out instead of going to church, my parents made sure I was in church and like any good parents, they made sure that my daily necessities were met.

Positive influence is something every teenager or even person needs to have in their life. My parents were the people that have that positive influence on me. For example, there was a time in my life where I was thinking of dropping out of high school. This was my freshman year and a really hard year for me. My grades were good but school was extremely boring for me. My parents helped me get through this situation by not allowing me to drop out. I remember my dad telling me that if I dropped out he wouldn't let me go to driving school. As a fifteen year old at the time, I yearned to get my license at sixteen. After my dad threatened me with that, I wisely decided to stay in school. I thought I would drop out when I got my license but fortunately, the urge never came back. Im glad I got past this stage and didn’t drop out. Another example is the friends that I had. My friends were a bad influence on me because they would skip and invite me to go with them. When we would skip school, my friends usually smoked and had some alcohol. I didn’t smoke but I occasionally drank a little because I didn’t want to stand out as a different person. My parents eventually found out and quickly put an end to it by grounding me, taking away a lot of my driving privileges and giving me a ten P.M. curfew. The way I look at this is that if my parents did not care about what I did in my life, I would be in some deep trouble right now.

Good parents. What this means to me is that they show you how to live life as an adult and provide you with the daily necessities. My dad has shown me the working part of life very well. He would take me to construction on Saturday’s. His line of work is construction and trust me there are better ways of making a living. So he would take me to work with him and over the years I learned to work extremely hard. My dad knew that I needed the skills for construction because if for any reason a better career didn’t work out or I wasn’t able to go to college, I would be able to find a decent construction job. Another quality that good parents need to have is to be able to provide for their family. I know that in America this might sound silly but when my family lived in Ukraine, there were plenty of parents that struggled in providing food, clothing and shelter for their family. My parents always provided us with all the necessities that we need, even beside the fact that out family of eleven is above the average size. I recall wanting my own car. My dad had given my older brother and sister a car, so when it was my turn, he came through again. I remember how last summer, I was the happiest person in the world when I saw my car for the first time. Overall, the mark of wonderful parents is when they manage to get it done amidst all the problems they face.

Religion is an extremely important part of my family's culture and tradition. It has been in our family tree for many years before I was born. So when I was having a hard time going to church and finding God, my parents were there to help me out. My mom got me involved with some church programs. I was in Sunday School and later on a Teen Class program that met once a week. I learned to read the Bible, how to pray and even things like choosing the proper friends. Now that I am too old for that program I joined a Cell Group. This is a group of young men who meet about once a week and discuss the Bible and life. This helps me spiritually because it’s like a weekly reminder that I have a purpose in life and that someone cares about me. It’s really quite uplifting. My dad helped me get involved in this. I have to say that I needed all the help I could get with my struggles in my spiritual life and my parents provided that help.

As I look back, I realize that heroes are people that truly have a marvelous impact on an individual’s life. In most cases, they are role models. I used to think of a hero only as a fictional character that has the good guy role. Now I know that these are fictional superheroes. My parents might not have super powers but they still have a big impact on my life. They are truly my heroes!