Personal Mission Statement

Personal Mission Statement

A Story by Benji Parker
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during my time in college i was presented with the task of writing a "personal mission statement". After recently rereading my essay, i realized what i good story i had actually written.

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Wilkins Motley IV (aka Benji Parker)

Personal Mission Statement

 

I’ve never had to write a paper so all-encompassing before. I’m not even sure how to start. What do I talk about? What information is truly important to me, and above anything else… who am I? Part of me wants to go in chronological order and basically talk about what I remember, but let’s be honest; I really don’t remember that much about being a kid. So then I decided I’ll just talk about what comes to my mind first, and take it one paragraph at a time. If it seems like I’m ranting then so be it, that’s just a part of who I am. Sometimes I just have to rant.

It’s weird growing up, my brother and I were never really close. Even still, he’s the first thing that popped into my mind. Wesley Xavier Motley, my older brother; and he has been ever since I was born. I always felt like we were so far apart, even though he’s only two years older. We’re like polar opposites when it comes to personality. My dad taught us about drawing and we grew up learning all about art. The only thing that really connected us though was video games. He was always better than me, at every game possible, actually. I spent most of the time trying to catch up with him; we just weren’t equals in that aspect. We weren’t equals in any aspect; he was just better at everything I was even moderately good at. Sports, video games, eating, intelligence, you name it, Wesley could beat me at it.

We had a weird relationship; I didn’t quite look up to him. For the longest time I was quite certain that I hated my older brother. Always living in his shadow, trying to surpass everything he had ever done. Typically we did our own thing; we went to the same elementary school, middle school, and high school. I was behind him every step of the way. We rode the same buses, walked the same halls, we even got home at the same time. Yet we never really spoke, he’d go to his world and I’d fold off into my own. Small things brought out the brotherhood in us, such as the release of a new two player video game, or if I new superhero movie was brought into the house.

People thought our relationship was so strange. I still remember the sound of our peers saying “you’re Wesley’s little brother?!” indeed I was. I never got it; to this day I still don’t get it. Who is Wesley to you people, who is he to me? I honestly just didn’t know my brother, and he didn’t know me either. My fondest memories with him were our one on one battles of Super Smash Brothers. It seemed like he respected me as an opponent, and I respected him. When there was a victory it wasn’t because one was better than the other, but because we duked it out until there was simply no more to give.

I believe Wilkins is a misunderstood person, but more than anyone my brother was. I don’t remember if he ever had any girlfriends, and I have no idea who his best friends were. I was teased all throughout my school years, but now that I think about it my brother must have had the worst of the two of us. At least I had the opportunity to stay out of the light, he seemed to attract the eyes of everyone around. We fought some times, but not too often. I remember we got in a fight in the back seat of my mom’s car. When she yanked us out she forced us to look at each other, blood dripping, face battered, we had torn each other apart. I couldn’t tell you what we fought about to save my life. That’s how most fights go though, they seem important at the time but that’s about it.

Well we grew up, and we grew even further apart. We didn’t even play video games together any more. He seemed to rip himself from my life completely, and I didn’t even notice. He graduated high school and we lived under the same roof for a while. It’s as if he wasn’t even around though, I’d get home from school and he’d already be locked in his room playing some new game he’d gotten. I remember getting home some times to find him in an argument with my dad. My guess is they were fighting about what he was going to do with his life. Wes was a very accomplished artist, or at least he could have been. We grew up together learning the same art, but his always seemed to surpass my own.  

I often tell people that I actually have a “long lost brother”. About four years ago he joined the air force, and I haven’t heard from him since. None of my family has spoken to him since he left. That was my brother though, I figured he’d leave and never come back. It’s like that quote “you never really know what you got till it’s gone”. If I had the second chance to get to know my older brother I would, I know it seemed like I hated him, and maybe I did. I loved my brother though, he’s my brother and he always was. I honestly don’t know if he knows that or not, I spent so much time making sure he knew that I didn’t care that I guess it actually seemed like I didn’t care; Ironic right? That’s enough about that guy though, big ups to my older lost BROTHER, Wesley Xavier Motley.

My morals are so different than most people. I read comic books and I play video games, and I have for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid my favorite heroes were from the comics I read and the cartoons I watched. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario, Captain Planet, Spider-man and plenty more. I could go on for hours about all the amazing heroes I watched and read about. Im sure my “obsession” with my favorite hero Spider-Man would seem a little odd to someone looking in from the outside. I don’t remember my parents telling me this is right, or this is wrong, even though I’m sure they often did. One thing I do remember is “with great power comes great responsibility”. It seems simple but there’s so much you can get from just that one quote.

The thing people often forget about Spider-Man is how “man” he really is. I think he may be the most human of all the heroes I know. He makes mistakes and he falls in love, just like any of us would. In the original comics he actually ends up killing a girl by attempting to save her life, and he felt the pain from that. He has to choose every day to do the right thing, when its often so easy to do the opposite. I respect him as a character, even if he is fictional.

We may not have the phenomenal strength and crazy super powers like the fictional character we read about, but we all have an opportunity to be heroes. It’s not for the fame or the glory, but for the simple fact that we should all help if we have the capability to. Since reading comic books I’ve developed what I call a “Super Hero Complex”, and it’s a gift and a curse. If you spend enough time with me you’ll learn that I’d risk my life to protect another human being, and sure that’s easy to say but im hoping I’ll never have to place that theory into practice. Why wouldn’t we help each other though, especially if we have the power to?

Another thing people forget about Spider-Man is how much of a jokester he really is. If you read any of his comics you swiftly find out that he doesn’t often seem to be taking a situation seriously. Things aren’t always as they appear though, the reason Spider-Man plays games with his enemies is to get the upper hand. Villains get easily distracted by his witty banter, and sometimes they reveal vital information that he can use. This aspect of him reminds me of myself. Yeah I can joke around and be the clown of the group, sure that’s easy. I’m the guy no one expects anything from though, its like camouflage in a way.

No problem is too small for Spidey, which is rare among heroes. You see super villains and intergalactic struggles but you never see someone helping a kitten out a tree. In the comic book industry there are way too many universes to count, and Spider-Man stays true to his character every single time. It’s not the powers that make him, he’s the same no matter what and these are just a few of the reasons I have such an affinity towards him.

I digress, I think the reason this paper is so difficult is because there is so much our lives are about. My biggest fear in life is realizing that I don’t have a purpose for my existence. The phrase “Personal Mission Statement” makes me think that we have to write down what we want to do with our time here. I absolutely have no idea, nothing I’ve done so far seems significant, and I can't think of anything I could do in the future that would be relevant. Im not the type of guy, that wants to grow up and have kids or a wife. Too often I need a definite answer to things, and life doesn’t really give you one. I suppose I want to be successful financially but that’s the only thing I can think of that would make me happy in the future.

I suppose my goal in life is the same as anyone else, I just want to be happy. I don’t really have a “mission” per say. I could break missions into pieces, like I want to graduate college, or I want to be an actor and have a nice job. Honestly when I think about things like that they all seem so meaningless, as if there has to be more to life. No matter where I am in life I always feel so unfulfilled. In a way it feels as if I was born without that thing that everyone else seems to have already grasped. Though there’s always that thought in the back of my head “you’re just thinking about it too much Wilkins, there really is no great meaning to life. We all just simply exist”. If my thoughts are accurate in saying that, then we might as well quit right here and now. Living just isn’t good enough for me.

People don’t typically get me, and I don’t typically get people. I understand generalizations about the human race, or maybe even about an individual person, but it’s different when you actually understand someone. I remember in kindergarten my best friend was this kid Daniel Morris. I often wonder what draws two people together, we were only kids so we hadn’t really developed a personality yet. We both just knew that we were friends, and that’s all we really needed. At that time I thought we’d never grow a part. It didn’t even occur to us that maybe one day we might go to different schools, or move far away from each other.

I felt inseparable from my friends till I graduated fifth grade. Eric Fleming was my best friend in fourth grade, and we still see each other from time to time. I remember we use to fight over the same girl in our class. Neither of us actually obtained her, I think we were more interested in the rivalry between us. Even though we graduated from elementary school and went our separate ways, that bond between us was still very strong. My friendship with Eric was my first real one.

This all leads me to the point I’m trying to make. I think friendship is one of the strongest bonds any one can have, its one of the most important things in life for me. If I consider you a friend I’d do almost anything for you. I’d honestly rather have a best friend more than a girlfriend or a wife, that bond just isn’t as strong for me. There is a difference between the people we go to school with and our close friends though. I feel a lot of people just group the bunch together as if they’re the same thing. Sure I like a lot of people I have class with but would I be willing to consider them a friend? I don’t say things to be cruel or anything like that, but because friendship means so much to me I can’t just use the term loosely.

I actually don’t remember how I met my current best friend, well not exactly. It seems as if he’s always been around, more than anyone else in my life. I know we met when I was in about seventh grade, we had the same theatre class. We were kids then, still mutating into the people whom we would soon become. Even then we weren’t the best of friends, we were friendly towards each other but we didn’t hang out that much. As the years went by we ended up in more theatre classes together and our bond grew stronger. They say you meet people that you’ll know for the rest of your life in college, but Adam Faust is someone I met in high school who I know will be a part of my life till the day I die.

He’s an interesting character, we’re the same on so many levels but our personalities vary in a lot of ways as well. It’s weird that I look up to him so much since he’s a year younger than me. He’s that guy that everybody looked up to. When you think of the stereotypical good guy, Adam Faust is the image you’d be thinking of. We get along get together since we’re both artist. In high school we had different ideas of projects we could work on, whether it was writing a song or drawing a picture. I’m often considered the funny guy in the group, but it’s great when somebody can actually make me laugh instead, that was easy for Adam.

He took the role of the brother I never had. We even matched each other’s skills in Super Smash Brothers (of course he would disagree, stating that his skill surpasses my own). Video games were often a “segue” to friendship for me, and he was the first to show a passion for it as much as myself. I didn’t have a real bond with my brother; I often wondered if the time I spent with my best friend was what other people felt with their siblings. After a while it got to a point where we were just together all the time. People didn’t refer to me as Wilkins in a group, it was typically “Adam and Wilkins”.

One of the best parts of having such a close bond was we trusted each other. When the rest of the world failed me so easily, Adam never seemed to no matter what. No matter how stupid I was, or how irrational my thoughts were, he stuck by my side even if that meant failure for us both. Writing about our friendship slightly takes away from the power of the bond that we have, only because words can’t describe it.

I remember we got into our first fight a few years ago. Of course it was stupid. We were playing a board game, I believe it was the week before he was about to go off to college. Things were a little stressful to say the least. I don’t fully remember what the argument was about; we always get into disagreements when it comes to competitive board games. We were at a friend’s house up the street and the last thing he said to me was “I can go!” and my words were “go right ahead”. We didn’t talk to each other after that, even though he’d be leaving for college soon and I thought I’d never see him again. That’s what men do though; neither of us were going to admit we were wrong. Neither of us thought we were wrong. About a month passed and we hadn’t communicated with each other. One day I just picked up the phone and called: “we good bro?” “Yeah, we good”, and it was as simple as that. We went on to talk about how he hated college and how I still hated college, but the rest was history.

Those days are behind us now. I always tell him that he’s more like family then a friend and I’m sure that’ll hold true till the day we die. I feel like I’ve said so much, but I haven’t really said anything at all yet. Adam Faust is my best friend, my future best man, and my brother. Without him I wouldn’t have become who I am today. I wouldn’t have attempted to go to school, and I wouldn’t have cared so much about the arts. He hates it when I say this, but I swear I owe that guy my life. I love him, with the entirety of my heart.

Onto another tangent, people always ask me about my name. There really isn’t much to explain about it. I guess it a sort of family thing. My dad’s name is Wilkins, my grandfather’s name is Wilkins, and my great grandfather’s name is Wilkins. The name seems to pass down a personality as well. I never met my great grandfather, but from the stories I’ve heard he sure does sound like a Wilkins. People seem to have a kind of gravitation towards us, and yet we all have the rage deep down within us. I wish I could have met my great grandfather, I’d love to see exactly how is personality was.

For as long as I can remember I’ve hated my name. I use to hate the fact that I was so different. I never liked the way it sounded when people said it, “Wilkins”. It always sounds as if there was a mistake made half way through making the name. First of all, everyone thinks it’s a last name for some reason. Then there comes all the nick names associated with it, nick names that make you sound like a little kid. Don’t even get me started on introducing myself to new people. Its like when our ears are ready to hear “Wilkins”, it immediately jumps to “William” or “Watkins”. So I’m a tad skeptic when people say “oh I love your name”

I feel as if I have yet to answer the question of whom I am; which makes sense since I still have no idea. There are things I could tell you about me, though I’m not sure that’ll help much. I believe everyone should find their own path in life. Don’t do what everyone else has done, and don’t try to be who anyone else is. I’m a firm believer in the fact that everybody has their own thing to offer if they choose to. People are so afraid that they won’t succeed, but you fail immediately if you refuse to try.

I joke around a lot. Not because I’m some sort of clown and I make everything into a joke, but because life is too short to be serious all the time. If I had to choose to have fun or not I’d much prefer to have a good time. Too often that side of my personality is taken as a weakness, or they’ll think that’s the only side of my personality. These statements couldn’t be further from the truth. Just because I kid around sometimes that doesn’t make me a liar or mean that I can’t have a serious conversation. There’s two sides to every coin… thats not actually a saying but it made sense so I wrote it down.

I don’t follow anyone’s lead blindly, if something doesn’t make sense to me I’ll be the first one to speak up. I never press my beliefs on anyone else but it annoys me when people just do whatever they’re told to do without question. How do you know that what they’re saying has merit unless you ask questions or do research. That goes with teachers as well, students too often just sit back and take it all in. Which brings me back to finding your own path, the only person you should have to live for is you. Sure you can prove yourself to everyone else, but do you have to?

I know for a fact I won’t be able to write as many pages as everyone else. The rest of the class may pretend that they’ve found themselves this early in life, but I don’t want to do that. Sure I can tell you about events in my life, or even about different people who’ve popped up in my, none of these things give my life meaning though. I’m the only one who can make these events and people important, and so far they simply aren’t. This has been a struggle for me to say the least, page eleven and I still have no idea what to write about.

Sure I could tell you about the first girl I thought I fell in love with. I could go on to tell you about how I got diabetes in fourth grade. Maybe you’d love to hear about how theatre became such an important factor in my life. Even my parent’s divorce seems relevant; or lastly about the first major death in my family, my aunt Selma. I could create a giant list of things that I could potentially talk about for days. What would it all mean though? Absolutely nothing, they’d just be words that I was forced to write on a paper for a school assignment. I long for the day I’ll be able to describe in detail who I am. But honestly at this point in my life I cant.

I may have missed the point of the assignment. Somewhere as I was typing I realized that typing is all I was doing; Hoping to fill the empty void of space on the paper. I wasn’t typing about what was important to me, or the values I believe in. I was typing to satisfy a grade. Could i write a 40 page pointless paper? You betcha, but now that I’m thinking this through, maybe that isn’t the goal with this paper. I can guarantee that the rest of my peers did a marvelous job of placing things in sequence and talking about key points in their lives that really matter to them. To be truthful, my life hasn’t mattered to me yet, if I were to die here at this keyboard then so what?

My intention isn’t to be dark or pessimistic. I just want to restate that I have no idea who I am or where I’m going. The only thing in life I really have right now is life. I have no idea what to do with it, or what I want to do with it. I’m still hoping to find out who I am, and maybe one day I can be understood and accepted by others. If not then so be it, but I’ll continue to live every day searching for my purpose. Honestly, with that being said, right about now seems like a great ending point for my Personal Mission Statement. My name is Wilkins Motley the Fourth, this is my Personal Mission Statement and I have no idea who I am.

© 2013 Benji Parker


Author's Note

Benji Parker
i am aware of the many grammar mistakes. any and all comments accepted though.

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Added on August 3, 2013
Last Updated on August 3, 2013
Tags: College, Life, Missions, Morals, Reason, Essay, Interesting, Story

Author

Benji Parker
Benji Parker

Durham, NC



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