When I was younger, I spent half of my life playing in gorgeous, green, and turfy lawns out front of my friends’ near-million-dollar homes, and the other half playing in the crumbling paved alley behind my own house. I grew up in a small town, where half of its residents came from a very modest upbringing, a large portion of their families being poor, like my own, while the other half were drawn there for their jobs in healthcare, higher education, and tech. When I went to school each day, most of my classmates always had the next new toy or fashion trend, while I was stuck in old hand-me-downs. I distinctly remember the first time I had ever laid eyes on a brand new iPhone, the owner of which was my friend, Kendall. 

I loved going to Kendall’s house. Their house was about ten times the size of where I lived, their family was always so pleasant and put together, and best of all, they had a whole theater in their basement fit with reclining chairs, a wall made for projecting movies, and every DVD you could think of. I mean, to me, their basement was more like my dream room– they had arcade games, pinball machines, Xboxes, bean bag chairs, and whatever a little 4th grader could dream of. I absolutely adored Kendall, and she adored me, so we would spend whatever time we could together. Her life was everything I wished mine was, and when she excitedly brought in her new iPhone for the first time, I felt horrible. My first reaction wasn’t to be happy for her, but instead, pure jealousy. My parents had always taught me to never feel jealous, but it was so hard not to. Why did other kids get everything and I had nothing? 

As I got older, heard more nasty talk from people, and became self-conscious as pre-teens do, I became somewhat shameful of my parents. They both have very humble upbringings and careers. My father worked in a factory while my mother was a receptionist, and when we finally had enough money, they began to study at culinary and beauty school, managing to balance their education, jobs, and taking care of me and my brother. Over many years, I was able to watch their careers grow. I watched them put in hundreds of hours of hard work to move up in their careers and their class. We slowly became able to afford better and better things, but being as young as I was, I had no clue how much work it really was. I took most of what they did for granted, and selfishly, I still wished my life was different. 

By the time I was in high school, I finally became comfortable in my life and proud of my parents and the things that we had. I was older, grateful, and more responsible than before. In my sophomore year of high school, I was transferred into a private school. I was so excited. When they told me I could transfer, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I finally felt that we had made it. But still, my new classmates had more wealth than I could ever imagine. We had nothing compared to them. Once more, I found myself embarrassed of what we had– embarrassed rolling my early 2000s Honda into a parking lot full of brand new Jeeps. Later, when it came time to apply to colleges, I had decided that I was going to silently work as hard as I could in school and get a high paying job. That way, no one would ever be able to tell where I came from, or that I was any different than them.

I’m pretty ashamed to say that I stayed self-conscious up until the day I graduated high school. I wish I could have seen how naive and unaware I sounded. We have so much compared to so many other people– my parents have worked tirelessly to give me absolutely everything they can. Only now do I notice and appreciate the exhaustion in their eyes from all of their years of hard work, and only now do I see that they do it all for me and my brother. Now, my core belief in life is that you should always be proud of who you are and where you come from. My end goal is no longer to be successful and leave behind the past– it’s to be able to pay back my parents for all that they have done for me. It’s so easy to get caught in the web of comparison and miss out on how much you actually have, but there is no reason to be ashamed of honest work, love, and dedication.