“Humanitarianism consists of never sacrificing a human being to a purpose.” Albert Schweitzer once said this. This quote mirrors how I see myself as a philanthropist in need of an education. With education I can reach my prosperity by using ethics of benevolence.

As an African-American male, I do not want to be another statistic: another black male that does not graduate from high school. Many individuals that have gone through some sort of struggle in life most of the time have just given up on what is most important. Not me. At the age of thirteen, I had a stroke which changed my life forever. Before the stroke I used to be a real naïve person; I used to believe in whatever people told me. All I wanted to do was play football and nothing else. After the stroke, I started to realize there are more things in life than just concentrating on one thing. Even after, I started to give up on life; I started not to care about anything. I contemplated dropping out of my old high school because I did not want to do anything. But once I transferred, my focus and love for school grew stronger. I went from a student getting 65’s and 70’s to getting 80’s and 90’s. Nobody really motivated me; I had a reality check and realized that without an education, I will become nothing and I do have a lot of talent. As they say, “Nothing is worse than wasted talent.” The stroke made me feel insecure and I had a lot of disbelief. But then I realized I had to do what I had to do.

Despite all the setbacks I faced in my life I was still able to overcome. My humanitarianism allowed me to reach my full potential. The realization of almost becoming a failure in life sparked something in my brain to not give up. Another thing that motivates me is seeing what people go through in the hospital. In the hospital I interacted with people that were in far different situations than I was. It opened my eyes to the fact people were still confident in some of the situations they were in despite the fact they were going through drastic events in life. This is an example of being a humanitarian, “Acceptance of every human-being for plainly just being another human.”

In conclusion, I have learned a lot from the difficulties and misfortunes in my life. Although I did not expect many changes in my life, I was able to adjust to them and make the best of my situations.