An Assignment I had to do.

Hello Internet-

A paper I had to write for class- Some of you may find it helpful/interesting. :-)

Fall into the Truth
Where to even start, is all I can think while trying to start this paper. There are so many approaches one could take to start it, to end it, or to build it up, and how do I know if it’s right? Which brings me to my next question, how do we know our knowledge is right? This paper is the second draft I have written about knowledge. I loved my introduction to the first one, but the whole paper didn’t seem good enough. It seemed awkward and choppy, and to me it didn’t make sense; I loved the topics raised in the last paper, but didn’t like the paper itself, because it didn’t feel right. Isn’t that weird, how you just know something isn’t right? That’s how I got my knowledge; I just kind of fell into it. Well, not really. I actually did a whole lot of wrong to get me the truths I was so blinded to. Knowledge is all about experience. Knowledge is justified belief. Do we justify it, or does society? For me, I justify my own beliefs, and this paper will explain why. Professor Rodriguez told us to be as honest as we could throughout this piece, and that is what I plan to do; in order to be as honest as possible, I need to start at the beginning.
I always thought I knew everything, I guess adolescence does that to us. We get cocky and smart with other people. My mom, my sisters, and my teachers could lecture me all they wanted about drugs, sex, or life, and my responses would always be, “yea, okay, I already know this.” The truth is, which was later brought to my attention, I didn’t. I knew little to nothing, but I put up this huge front, which was my first major mistake. Maybe I shouldn’t say mistake, my first lesson, because there are no mistakes in life, there are only lessons or things that happen that are supposed to show us or teach us something. We grow from our mistakes and we learn from them. So, a mistake is never a negative thing unless of course harm is caused to others, for example drunk driving.
Unfortunately, negativity swept over me the minute I realized I really didn’t know anything. And, of course being a teenager I didn’t want to admit it. That was the first time I cut myself. The burden of actually not knowing killed me on the inside. I guess I just wanted to grow up too fast, and know everything, but I was rushing something that I had no control over. It felt good. Every time I cut, it was like an escape. At this time, this was the only knowledge I had. This pain and this suffering was my way of telling people I was in control but I really had no idea what the hell I was doing.
My older sister cut, and I guess that’s where I got the idea that it was okay. We go through life constantly asking all these questions, because we feel we need to have the answers. When I didn’t have the answers, I couldn’t handle it. And the knowledge I had was to release it. My best friend at the time was so smart. I was so good at hiding the marks, and then one day I thought it was a long sleeved sweater and it was three quarter lengths. That day was the first time I started getting my knowledge back. My friend told the guidance center what she saw, even though I assured her I was handling it and it was stopping, and then the school called my mom. For weeks I was seeing a social worker and a therapist once a week. Because of her, she gave me another chance to receive the answers I was so desperate to find.
Drama at school exploded, and my mom sent me to Prague with my sister who was performing at a club there. She wanted me away from the school and just some time to handle my thoughts and get myself together. This trip is where I thought I learned all my knowledge. My oldest sister is so wise, so mature, so knowledgeable, and she received all of this knowledge through experience. On this trip she told me about her struggles too, about how she had trouble in school and was sucked into drugs, but realized they were not the answer. Seeing how happy and knowledgeable she was, she had made it through; I knew I had to listen. I knew there was more I needed to learn and benefit from her mistakes. .
I came back a whole new girl. I graduated from high school a semester early, because I knew that my high school was not for me. Let me clarify, my high school was 99.5% white, middle upper class, where differences were not really accepted; instead you would get bullied for your differences. I knew it was bringing me down. I knew the catty girls and the drama were ripping me apart inside. The last semester of high school was the best four months of my life. I knew I was leaving a place I hated; I knew I would be okay and free, Prague had taught me that. I got a job as a waitress at a fine dining restaurant by my house, and followed in my other older sister’s footsteps. She warned me, there are a lot of drugs there. She told my mom she didn’t want me working there, and I said it’s okay I am strong I won’t give in. I told myself that for about a month, but I gave in.
Knowledge is iffy, because if we justify it ourselves, then anything we do or think is right. But the best knowledge is the truth that we justify. From about sixth grade till when I graduated I was being taught every year about the side effects of drugs and cigarettes, and I just didn’t care. In my head, I had it all under control and I was just having some fun. I was experimenting. I was killing myself emotionally is what I was doing. For these reasons I think that knowledge doesn’t come from being taught information. I could verbatim tell you the side effects I had been taught of pills, of uppers, of downers, of underage drinking, or of smoking cigarettes; but none of that mattered. Why? I can’t give a justified reason other than I really thought I knew what I was doing.
My new best friend at the restaurant literally turned into my drug buddy. That’s all we would do when we were together, is get high. After a month or so, those habits turned into my knowledge. They turned into my justified truths. I needed the pills to be calm, because without them I was on edge, I felt like I was living in a tunnel, and I just didn’t like life without them. Knowledge is adjustable, it constantly is changing and adapting to the individual. I shut myself out of life. I became consumed in a world that was so dark and numb, and looking back, I don’t know why I felt so happy there. I was rude and irritable 24/7. I would argue with my mom all the time, because she didn’t understand, and I stopped talking to all my friends because they didn’t understand. No one understood except my friend and me. This was my next major mistake.
My knowledge and my world were consumed by my job. I slept till I worked because that was my new “home”. When I wasn’t working I would visit, because I had nowhere else to go. I had no more answers, but I had no more questions either. I had lost all the knowledge I had gained previously, and that’s what hurt the most. I started dating a guy there, he worked in banquets and I was a waitress. I promised him over and over I would stop drugs, stop the lying, and stop the games, but I couldn’t. My friend at the time decided to tell this guy that I was cheating and messing around with other guys at work, a few days after I had told him we needed some space. He didn’t like that, nor was it true. He called me that night yelling and screaming, and I tried telling him the truth. I guess I was really that far gone, that I had even been lying to myself. I had lost all sense of hope and security, most importantly; I had no one to turn to.
The next day he came up to me when I got to work and was yelling and screaming at me. I decided to quit right then and there. I went in, tears running down my face and told my boss take me off the schedule; I was done. That’s the only thing that I did know, is I needed to get the hell away from that place. I don’t know why I knew that, but that was the only thing that felt right to me at the time. Get away from the connections, the dealers, the drama, the numbness, and just leave. Carlos, the guy I was seeing, was my wake up call. He got arrested that night just from being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and about a month later was deported back to Mexico. When my boss told me, I was really lost. He was the only one that understood why I was doing what I was doing, he understood and I never had to say a word. He was my guardian angel, looking after me and I didn’t even know it.
I got home, went straight to my room and fell to the soft carpet. I couldn’t even hold back the emotion. I held my knees and rocked back and forth, my body shaking and aching uncontrollably. At this moment, I knew I had hit my all time low, and I knew I was truly alone. I felt all of these emotions at once, and I knew nothing. All I knew was I was slowly destroying my body and myself, and for so long I hadn’t cared. We may be informed of subjects, but when do we know how knowledgeable we really are on them? I realized later that my knowledge was so skewed and wrong, that I had been justifying reasons to get high, to smoke, and to hurt myself. Knowledge in adolescence is hard to obtain, but we all possess some sort of understanding of the world. Whether it is dark and dreary or light and optimistic. It took me hitting rock bottom to obtain the knowledge I have now, and my knowledge is the most valuable thing I own today.
Through experience we just fall into truths. We are taught for years to not have unprotected sex, and to always wear a condom, yet teen pregnancy seems to be more accepted now then ever. I mean we now have shows following teens around and showing the struggles or joys of being a teen mom. A lot of people have not experienced a lot of different, and that’s where I feel the world’s knowledge is so far off. Has everyone fallen into a drug addiction? Has everyone gotten so lost that they chose to cut? No, so how can the world teach us about topics it hasn’t even been through? Because let’s face it, I give the best advice on the things I have struggled through.
My friend, David, who stopped talking to me because of the drugs, told me finally to read this book. He said it helped him when he was a dealer and losing his knowledge. The Secret by Rhonda Byrne is my Bible. It’s what sparked the knowledge I have now. The idea that we create our lives, and all we have to do is put it out into the universe for it to come back to us. This book had all the answers I had been looking for, and I think that may be a reason why people find so much faith and belief in the Bible, and hence why this book is my Bible. I found faith and belief in this author’s words and thoughts. The book justified my beliefs, just like the Bible justifies others’ beliefs.
It is always hard coming to terms with the truth, and it’s never easy admitting what we try so hard to deny. I denied and denied that I was an addict, because I didn’t want to be. But the minute I came to terms with the issue, was the moment I received my knowledge back. A lot of the time, it seems that when others lose their knowledge, they let it stay lost. They lose themselves and everything that goes along with them, and don’t know how to get the truth back. People seem to not want to or can’t come to terms with reality, and that’s where their knowledge becomes vulnerable. They don’t want it to be true so they ignore whatever is going on, and lose light of their truths. They hide from the truth and take cover under the lies that have become reality.
Honestly, knowledge is hard to define. The best way for me to explain what it means to me is that it’s obtained through experience and is the lessons we learn from these experiences. We are continually gaining and losing knowledge, because we continue to experience. Right now, about a year after I felt I had lost it all, I am now experiencing life at a whole new level. I completely turned my life around, and am experiencing and living life as best I can. Knowledge is appreciating life, appreciating people, and appreciating everything in general. Knowledge can be perspective, because someone else who hands in this paper may see knowledge as being something completely different. They may see it as the understanding of material. That knowledge is gained through learning in school. Every definition of knowledge is right, because like I said earlier, it is justified belief. As long as we feel it, it’s right.
Once we obtain a good base of knowledge, we then start to listen to our subconscious. It will tell us if we are doing something right or wrong, it will give us an insight to what we should or shouldn’t do. Knowledge is there to guide us through life because everything happens for a reason. Because of these reasons I now feel my knowledge is reliable. I know when or where to stop, I know what is right or wrong, and this knowledge is all in my heart. In some ways, these reasons could make my knowledge vulnerable. There is no outline to my knowledge, it just is, and I live life based off of what I know. Other people don’t seem to do that. They live life off of what they want to do, not what they know. That’s why I became lost, that’s why more teens are getting pregnant, and that’s why all of these uncertainties flood people’s lives, because they do what they want to do.
Every action we do has consequences, whether they are good or bad. Therefore our knowledge can have good and bad consequences as well. My knowledge is more advanced than a lot of people my age; I have experienced and lived a lot more than I thought I was going to. People are constantly telling me I am wiser beyond my almost 20 years, so, when people come to me for advice, I have a lot more to say and a lot more options for what they can do. The best consequence is that knowledge is about giving; we shouldn’t keep our knowledge to ourselves. We need to spread it and teach others what we struggled to find. Because of things we have been through, we can help others get through them in a better way than we did. Knowledge is about living. People live their lives, but not in a knowledgeable way. How can we fix this? How do we get people to retain the knowledge our parents, teachers, siblings, and or friends try to teach us? All we can do is try to teach; the knowledgeable will listen, and the others will figure it out on their own.
My family has taught me to figure one thing out on my own, to love with all of your heart. Find someone you trust, love, can’t do without and hold on to them. For practically my whole life I have grown up around arguments, verbal abuse, and vulnerability. The last ten years have been my dad emotionally and physically abandoning the family. Always “working” and providing for the family he says. My mom raised me, and taught me not to do physical or emotional harm to others, that giving makes others feel good so I learn to give, and give all of me. This lesson hasn’t always benefited me, because people thought they could step all over me, use me, or bully me. Not everyone has come from the same background, but our backgrounds and experiences have taught us what we know now.
I know who I am, and I know where I have been. I am not ashamed of my past; I embrace it. I have learned and continue to learn a lot from my mom and those around me. She has so much knowledge, and tries to share it with my sisters and I; now that we are knowledgeable, we listen. Now that we understand, and have tested our understanding of the world, we listen. I think that’s what adolescence is all about though, experimenting and testing the world till we figure out our own meanings. And that’s what I did, that’s what the world does. We try new things or try new ways, and eventually we will end up where we are supposed to be in life, and maybe that life isn’t as long as we had hoped. Some people get so lost they do irreparable harm to themselves, but maybe they have learned all they can. Their reason for doing so is to teach the people around them to wake up, soak in the knowledge, and live life.
Another thing, life is never easy. Every day we are challenged, tempted, and confused. That’s what makes my knowledge so special to me. I had to work really hard to finally receive it, and I’m still not done experiencing. Our lives are built off of knowledge; we don’t necessarily need to understand we just need to know. We don’t need to know why things are happening; we just need to know that it was supposed to happen. People may want to know the reasons behind events that occur, because the situation probably isn’t normal or isn’t what society has set up for us to believe is supposed to happen. The one question I would always ask myself is, “why is this happening to me?” I never understood, and I still don’t understand. I just know that I had to go through addictions, struggles, and overcoming all of them in order to be who I am and to be where I am.
On that note, the media doesn’t help people obtain knowledge. The media helps build a fake knowledge that people see to be true; in other words, they justify fake beliefs. They teach girls they need to be a size two in order to be pretty, it teaches us that acne is ugly, and it teaches us that we need to dress a certain way to “fit in” or be “normal”. But what I wonder is, when was this decided to be the world’s justified belief, and who decides these truths? So, when does it stop? When do we start accumulating our knowledge instead of having it go in one ear and out the other? When did it become acceptable for people to do wrong, when we know we should be doing right? Is it because that’s all they know, or is it because they just really don’t care? Does our own personal knowledge affect what we do, and if so how can we prove this?
I could sit here all night typing this paper about why I understand where most of the world today gets their “knowledge”, because I really don’t. I could talk about my knowledge and how I got my knowledge all night, but regardless some people just won’t listen. It’s like…what’s one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. We are so quick to forget and we all take so much for granted it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what people see as knowledge, because now a days it seems people are forgetting to think before they do. But let’s be honest, as this paper has been as honest as I can make it, we really should just go off of our own knowledge. The world and society makes up a lot of rules, laws, ideals, morals, etc. that we should follow, but who is to say that these rules, laws, ideals, morals etc. are right? I mean, many of them are right, but some of them, like it’s illegal for partners of same sex in some states to get married is not fair, nor is it right. The world’s knowledge is a lot of perspective and what they think is best for the world, but do they really know what is best for 7 billion people?
My knowledge tells me to follow my heart and what I feel is right, because as you have learned, from what I know now, have done a lot of wrongs. But that’s okay; those wrongs brought me here, Syracuse University. I have done everything in my power to turn my life around and be the best I can be. My knowledge is my treasure, it is something I appreciate everyday, why shouldn’t I? I know how it feels to feel like you have absolutely no knowledge at all. So now all I can do is embrace life and use the knowledge I have gained through experience to guide me to where I want to be, and help others along the way.


As always,
-Miss Optimistic