preview

The Foster Portfolio: What I Want From Life

Decent Essays

What I Want From Life At the end of my senior year of high school, I had to make a senior portfolio; part of the project was to write down your goals and make a timetable for where you see yourself in five or ten years. I wrote that my goal in life is to be happy and I skipped the timetable because if my goal is to be happy then I can’t plan out how to obtain that goal. Who knows what will make me happy in five years? Life is constantly changing; nothing actually stays the same. It is important to set goals for yourself, but my idea of goals is different. I want to be happy and my goal is to take whatever smaller steps are necessary to get there. Many people might say their goal in life is to be successful. But how is success measured? It’s all a matter of opinion and influence. One society’s idea of success may be different than another society’s idea, just as one individual’s idea of success may be different from another individual’s idea. My idea of success is happiness. When I’m on my deathbed, I want to look back on my life and be truly happy with it. My goal is to continuously figure out what makes me happy and to strive to keep doing it. Part of the reason I’m going to college in the …show more content…

I admired Herbert for his view on success and for his goals. He wanted to provide for his family and be self sufficient, not accepting help from anyone. However, he also valued his personal happiness, i.e. his secretive piano playing in dingy bars. He wanted to make his family proud but he also wanted to make himself happy, and he found a decent middle ground to satisfy everyone. He could continue in his father’s footsteps and provide for his wife and son, and his wife would still picture him as the hard-working family man he is. Vonnegut portrays the typical desire for success through the narrator, who really only values money, and the not so typical through Herbert, who finds success through independence and

Get Access