Live my life
同志社香里高等学校

２年

鹿村佳

矢In December, I had an English speech contest in my school. All the highschool students gathered and I made a speech, and luckily I got the firstprize. A lot of my friends said “You were great!” “Your English waswonderful!” I was happy but deep in my heart, I couldn’t be satisfied withthese complements about my speech. I didn’t know why, so I decided to think
about it.
Later I realized my English skill was not a result of my effort. When Iwas little, my mother took me to a lot of different countries because she loves

so they want me to speak English like them. When I told them that I wasgoing to join the speech contest, they hoped that I would win the first prize.
Without any notice, I wrote a speech for my parents to be happy, not formyself.
Since I was little, I learned many things such as playing the piano, doingballet, and speaking English. I know I’m very privileged to have theseopportunities. My parents had a lot of expectations for me. I had to win
prizes at piano concerts, get an important role in ballet competitions, and win
the first prize at an English speech contest. I have really worked hard for myparents’ expectations. I was glad to see my parents’ happy faces. But after afew years, I worked hard to make them happy, I didn’t do it for me. That’s
why I wasn’t comfortable with the complements I got.
I have worked for someone else, not for me. Since I kept doing this for 17years, finally, I realized I didn’t know what I want to do or what I’m reallyinterested in. Then, I realized I am not living my life.
Let’s think about our school. In my school we have a many chances touse English for example, we have a variety of study abroad program orspeech contests like this. But if you choose it or not and is up to you. My
friends around me said they didn’t know that there were those programs even41

高校生―Ｄ部門

to travel, so I learned English very naturally. My parents speak English too,

though they are interested in English. Why? I think, in Doshisha schools, wedon’t have to take entrance exams to enter high school and university.
Usually, people who have exams to enter high school or university think
about what they are interested in or what they really want to do, but wedon’t. Our good point is we don’t have one big exam, but also it means goesthat we don’t have a chance to look and think, what do I really want to do?
I remember the moment that I felt really happy. I belong to music cluband we competed in a music contest this winter. I felt a true sense ofachievement when we won the award. This was the first time I ever did
something without being influenced by my parents, so it felt really different.
It took a long time to realize “I am not living my life for myself.” Are
you living your life? Are you living for someone else? Do you know what you
think about the world?
高校生―Ｄ部門

We have many opportunities to see a lot of information from TV,
magazines, and mostly smartphones. Since we can see too many opinions, wemisunderstand that “those are my opinions”. But we should think about what
is it our true idea, or you will lose track of what you really think. So now,when I do something, I try to think “is this really what “I” want to do?”I’m 17 years old. You are very close to becoming adults so maybe you arethinking “I have to change something” or “I want to grow up”. And people
teach you a lot of things and give you a lot of information, but to live yourlife, you should not be influenced but think by yourself, and you should have
YOUR opinion and not lose the true you. If you can live your own life, you
can find the things that you really want to do and you can choose how tolive your life.

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