“What’s the $100 question Dad?”, that was the question for every vacation we went on. I can’t tell you about my intellectual life without talking about how I was raised. My parents were very proactive about teaching us to think for ourselves. Every vacation we went on my dad would present my brothers and I with a challenging question that would earn the winner a $100. Most of the time it would take the week for someone to come up with the answer, after lots of reasoning and analyzing. None of us ever liked losing, but it was worth the challenge and exciting to see who could get it. There were always creative ways to get us thinking about things. We were taught to respectfully question everything and find answers for ourselves. My parents have definitely created an environment that encouraged thinking.
My love for knowledge is something that I foster through reading, television and the internet however my favorite is always to be able to experience life. Most of my reading is for knowledge, I do not like to read for leisure. I want something that is going to help me grow as a person and enrich my life.
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I have been to Honduras on multiple missions trips. I have seen the face of poverty and the sheer joy that comes from the simplest act of kindness. I have been to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and stood where men died fighting for what they believed in. I have been to Queens, New York, which is the most ethnically diverse area in the United States, and stood on the streets handing out coats to people who were freezing. I have served women who were in a drug recovery program. I saw the look of gratitude that they were being given a second chance at their life. None of this could be learned from a book or a class I took, but is more valuable to me than any other thing I have learned. It has taught me to analyze the world that I live in and how to make it a better place for