Handbook for Boys: Discussion #2

“Life is not working for people, they’re making their lives work by figuring out how they want to live and acting in their own interest.” – Duke.

            For our second meeting, we talked about “success.” The 52 pages that we read for this meeting had a lot to do about success, what it is, and how to be successful. Duke talked about how he would want every boy in Harlem to go to pre-kindergarden philosophy so that he can teach him to start thinking about how they will live their lives. He states how he want to publish a book called “A Handbook for Boys” which will have three rules in it. Rule number one: Figure out what success is. Rue number two: find out what work is needed to get to that success. Rule number three: Once you find out what success is, what work is needed to get there, then go and do the work. He wants to publish this book because he feels that there are not enough role models to pass down information that young people need to pursue success.

            Mister M talks about his life growing up, how his father and mother both worked really hard sorting coffee in Puerto Rico. They worked hard so that they could move to the US and send him to a good school. He came here to the US, joined the army, worked at Macys, and opened up his own restaurant. He was pretty content with how his life turned out. Duke and Mister M talk about success so that they have Jimmy and Kevin think about it and see what they want to do with their lives.

            Success means different things to many people. Success mostly means to achieve a goal of some sort. Success for me means to graduate college with a diploma in Bilingual Elementary Education and once I graduate to be able to get a job. When I think of role models I have four role models in my life that I thank god every day for. They are my parents and my two brothers. My brothers are especially the two people who I look up to the most. They both are more than 8 years older than me and have achieved so much in life that I strive to one day be as successful as them. Growing up, my parents always enforced “getting an education” on us. My parents did not go to college so for them it was important that we went. My parents both work hard jobs and they support me in every way possible. They are honestly the best parents and when I become a mom I want to be just like them. Now back to my brothers, because education was so important for us my brothers made sure to graduate from college. One brother is a Lawyer and the other is Information Technologist (IT).  I see how they are now and again it makes me want to be just like them, but I will be a teacher. They always gave me advice growing up and made sure that I was doing what I was supposed to do. That is what success means to me. Now what does success mean to you?