Patrick Murray

 

                As I’ve grown more mature and have come to realize more and more who the one person I have looked up to my whole life, I realize that I would not be where I am today if not for them. That person is my older brother, Ian. Ian is currently thirty years old and resides in Oklahoma with his wife Alicia where he is stationed for the United States Coast Guard.

                While growing up, Ian was basically my best friend. He wasn’t the most mature bird in the nest but he was very responsible. If you knew Ian in high school, you wouldn’t see him as a kid who would soon be living on his own, joining the military, or even putting a mortgage down on a house. He even won class clown in his senior year book. It really makes me proud to see him doing all of these great responsible things in life. It’s funny, whenever he visits home and we go eat at McDonalds or something, we still see people who he graduated with working there.

                My definition of a role model would simply have to be someone you could see yourself being when you’re older and having no problem with it. I guess I see my brother as this figure just because of the success that he has had in the real world. I hear all of these stories of people failing when they get to the “real” world and I guess that seeing someone I’m so close with living comfortably and being happy, just makes me want to be like them.

                To make myself find the same level of success as my brother, I am going to really have to buckle down and realize that I am not getting younger, and those days of paying my own bills are coming, and coming fast. I need to find the maturity level in me to go out and take care of these responsibilities, and if I am anything like Ian, it should be no problem at all. I can’t lie, I’m nervous as hell, but I could not be more excited for what the future holds for me.