The Word Changes The Life

By: Duy Huynh

            The future is something that is hard to predict, it might happen as you wish, but it can also be totally different. All this depends on what you do in the present. If you strive for your dream, it will be come true; one example is my cousin, Nghia. His life totally changed when he knew he had to work hard for his future.

            My cousin came to United States in 1992, when he was 11 years old. Nghia and his mother wanted to come to United States to have a better life; their life in Vietnam at that time was too hard and miserable so they wanted to change it. But life in United States wasn’t like what they imagined, it was even harder, and the biggest problem was language. But it didn’t make them feel dispirited. Two days after coming to the US my aunt started to find jobs and my cousin started to learn English while he was waiting for new school year. As you know it’s impossible to know English just in few months, and it was more difficult to him to learn English because he hasn’t learned English before.

And a new school year was finally came. He went to school with just a little English knowledge. It was terrible to him; he couldn’t understand any words about the lessons, he couldn’t communicate with other students and he couldn’t ask anyone to explain to him. He said that sometime he wanted to give up, leave school then find manual labor jobs , but when he saw his mother had to work extremely hard to support to him, it gave him fortitude to strive to learn because he know that only knowledge could help him, help his family to get out of that miserable life.

One time, and that was a destiny moment Nghia heard the conversation of his father with his sister, she said:” Only my children who were born here might have success here, your child he couldn’t do anything so I think you should ask him to come back to Vietnam, USELESS.” The word “USELESS” made him very angry and it was touching his pride. Since that time he tried to learn harder than ever, he wanted to prove for everyone to see that he could do anything like anyone, even better. He studied like today was the last day of his life. He studied anytime anywhere, at school he tried to talk with other students as much as he could about the lesson. He found help from teachers and asked immediately when he confused. After school he stuck in the library until they closed to do homework and find books which taught English. He had so many books that the backpack got as big as him, if you was looking him from behind you could only see his backpack. He often stayed up late to study grammar but not like other people who sit on the desk and study; he covered himself in the blanket and used the flashlight to study, he didn’t want to turn the light on because he didn’t want to bother his parents while they were sleeping. He was such a good child.

When Nghia was in high school, he actively participated in many school activities such as basketball team and volunteering. After school, he went to work to earn money for college. He did a lot of jobs like working in McDonalds, working in gas station, gluing flyers, delivering newspapers… My cousin is as intelligent as Newton; he won many scholarship and he was chose by many reputed universities such as UCSF, UC Berkeley, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, UC Santa Cruz, UC Babura, UCLA, Stanford University, UC Davis and UC Stain Marry. He chose UCSF at first because it was closest to his house and he could study cardiovascular tuition was too expensive so he chose UC Davis. Somebody asked him why he didn’t choose Stanford or UCLA, there school are better for him, he said he didn’t want to stay so far because he wanted to take care his mother.

He had studied in UC Davis for 4 years then he continued in- depth studied of cardiovascular surgery in 8 more years, while he working practice in the hospital. In that hospital, he was chosen to be a leader of the group of seven best trainees, because he had a master’s degree in creative writing. And now, one more year, he will complete all his requirements and official becomes surgeon. One time I asked him if he ever felt hated toward the woman who said bad thing about him, and Nghia said:” only first time, I want to meet her and say thanks to her because if she didn’t say so, I might not success like today, she gave me the goal to strive for it.

As you can see, my cousin became a surgeon; his life was totally changed by one word. He deserves all these successes. Anything can happen, people might not know what they will be, but they can choose what they want to be and they can strive for it. Endeavor is the key for you to makes your dream come true. Nobody born with intelligence or stupid, it all depends on you. Thomas Edison said: “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety- nice percent perspiration.”