This week we got to take a roller coaster of emotions through the journey of one young students best and worst year possible. First off ill say again we have been very lucky that our profs have put together a well rounded set of readings they keep you off balanced and you never really know what to expect next but they all touch you in a different way. This story is a semi autobiography about a Spokane Indian named Arthur “Junior” Spirit who decides that if he doesn’t change schools to get of the reservation that he will die either physically or spiritually. This decision is met with a lot of pain and anger from the people on the reservation especially from his best friend Rowdy. During his transition at his new school he begins to learn different lessons about life on and off the reservation and starts to appreciate what he has in this opportunity away but also what he has left behind at home. The story takes has some incredible highs and the lowest of the lows and anyone that I am able to recommend this to I will.
Personally I only wish one day to be able to display the amount of strength that Junior was able too. Leaving the reservation knowing that it was going to make him and his family so hated was huge but none of that is possible without the support that he felt from his family to go out there and achieve to his full capacity. When I was in high school I also changed school because I believed that the environment I was in was holding me back, there was a lot of drug use and violence at my school and a lot of teachers that were me worried about their safety. The problem for me was the high school that I wanted to go too was 30 minutes away from where we lived and would only accepted me if I lived in the area and I remember sitting down with my mom to tell her what I wanted and even though we would have to pick up and move and displace my brothers and sisters she moved us into the area so I could switch schools. I felt very selfish My 3 youngest siblings also had to change schools and leave their friends behind that they had grown up with but everyone was supportive of me because no matter the cost she was going to put us in the best situation succeed and we understood as a unit that we all have to sacrifice for us to all be successful. There is a main message I took from this story that I hope that I can pass on to anyone I come across whether it be classmate, students, or any random person on the street. That message is that we do not have to be a victim of our situation we can always do better if we aspire to. We are capable of overcoming any situation if we learn the lesson that is being taught at that moment. Early on in the book Arthur says, “Poverty doesn’t give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No poverty only teaches you how to be poor.” And for the longest time I believed that I believed that I was never destined to be anything I believed that I would never attend University or find a career that wasn’t sports related. I believed that because we had nothing that in turn I would have nothing and no matter how much my mom tried to stay positive her struggle was real trying to support all of us and I just saw it as a cycle. I learned from watching my mom bust her butt everyday that no matter how many jobs she had to work she wasn’t giving up till all 5 of us were successfully away at school and she never became a victim of her situation. Once I learned this the sky became the limit there was nothing or no one that was going to stop me and that has lead me here today. Once you let go of the feeling of helplessness you will able to achieve so much more that you ever thought you could. The struggle is real for everybody and for some people like Arthur the struggle is more real than most of us will ever experience but with the right support and the right mindset we are all powerful beyond measure.
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