It has been a long, long time in the making. Almost twenty years in a life full of experiences has shaped me into the man I am today. I am the culmination of those lessons learned, and I am stronger today than I have ever been. But things weren 't always so well. Throughout the duration of the PADR course, I have learned a great deal about myself. I feel that personal growth and introspective analysis thereof is perhaps the most valuable ability one can learn, and while I was not introduced to these things in this course, I honed these skills every day. For the past 2 years, I have been struggling with the loss of my father. I felt so horrible for my mother that I could not focus on my studies. I felt selfish for feeling sorry for myself, and that made me feel even worse. My grades were a wreck because my life was a wreck. Slowly, things began to take a positive turn. I finished my first year at Texas Tech and was glad to be back home. Looking …show more content…
Last year, I participated with my fraternity in a Cycle for Life event held at the United Spirit Arena, and my brothers and I will participate in this and multiple other community involvement events annually. Additionally, my fraternity may work with other fraternities or sororities in their community events, so there will undoubtedly be numerous experiences to had as time progresses. In the Cycle for Life event in which I was involved, the messages conveyed by the speakers really struck a chord with me. I certainly felt empathy for the speakers, as I had just gone through tremendous loss as well, and I also felt empowered. These people had gone through extremely difficult times and had managed to go on and live good, meaningful lives, and that inspired me. In the sadness of losing my father, I felt so grateful to have my mother. I felt grateful to be young and to have a lifetime of experiences ahead of me and to be