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A Window to Life

It is late and I decide to lie down, whimpering over another wasted day of my life. I turn off my lights and stare out my window. I often stare up into the starry night sky but this time, the moon’s full body lights up the sky. The shining rays beam down at me through the zigzag slots in my blinds.

The scene reminds me of a painting in my counselor’s office. It is a colorless picture of Martin Luther King, Jr. staring out a bared window. Definitely, Dr. King in the painting was not worrying about having a wasted day, but about whether he would live another day without feeling imprisoned.

I couldn’t believe how selfish I was for crying over a wasted day of my life. I have so much that many others would love to trade for. I don’t live in a world full of fear of drive-by shootings, being handicapped or having no freedom in life.

About a week ago, I was awakened in the middle of the night by a loud bang and the shattering of glass. When I heard the accident I didn’t want to open my closed blinds, I didn’t want to know that death to a human being could be so close to my life. I didn’t want to know that there is no such thing as a safe place in this world. I was confused. How could the same window where I usually admire a magnificent moon be the window that showed me the flash of death?

The painting of Martin Luther King, Jr. made me realize that you can ignore what’s happening around you — close your window blinds to life — or you can open your blinds to the world and try to make a difference in your life.

For starters, I faced one of my biggest problems: not being able to open up to my parents and express my heart. I realized that I was always setting high goals and never thinking about what to do after achieving these goals. Instead, I would just keep climbing for higher mountains, hoping one day to return the honor and hard work my parents had presented to me. I soon saw that the mountain of achieving a prestigious career in bioinformatics was built on the impression that prestige, money and honor were the right choices for my Chinese family. My older brother is becoming a dentist and my dad has his Ph.D. and all I’m doing is spending time at a community college — nowhere near their paths. I had discovered that I was living my whole life by what I thought it should be and not by what my heart wanted.

After many difficult explanations with my parents I was able to share with them that their son was no longer a child or teenager but a man. I was living life so much from the window and the blinds that my parents opened and closed for me. I was a prisoner, like Martin Luther King, Jr. in that picture, locked in a world of pre-standards. In order to grow I needed freedom, freedom to be able to dream and achieve my own dreams.

Martin Luther King, Jr. believed in being able to communicate and that is how he made a difference. I was always hesitant to speak openly to my parents, afraid to turn our conversation into another teary argument. I didn’t want to head to college not having a trusting relationship between my parents. So I spoke out and what emerged out of me was something new. A new person who was able to deal with the multiple identities of Chinese traditions and American values.

I was doing what Martin Luther King Jr. would want me to do, live the dreams I really want to live.