review

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Yusuf Hussein

Professor Koss

Writing Intro Comp

September 13, 2021

Finding Purpose

When I was growing up, I never believed that heroes existed in society. If they existed,

then we wouldn't be suffering from racism, poverty, and discrimination. We would be living in a

utopian society where everyone is happy. As a child, I never had anyone I could look up to in

life. My family and I immigrated to the United States in August 2004. At that time, I was three

years old, with parents who had no education that wanted their kids to live a pleasant life. Which

meant they had to sacrifice everything they once had; their family, friends, and hometown. I

come from a refugee background therefore I faced a lot of challenges. These challenges

reinforced my disbelief in the existence of heroes.

There was a time in my life when I was at my lowest. I had mental depression. This

depression wasn't normal; I came to see myself losing hope in life. I sought medical attention,

but the doctors couldn't find what was wrong with me. I had so much going on at the time, for

instance, my paternal grandmother, who I never got to see passed away in Africa. That left me

with my maternal grandmother. This broke my heart. In addition, I had challenges at school and

work. I was going through a rough phase in my social life as well. This is mainly because I have

a weakness of making other people’s feelings a priority but not my own. This makes me feel like

am losing control. I also felt a significant burden on my shoulders to help others. It also made me

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overlook all my dreams and what I want to fulfill in my life. Our purpose and dreams are the

things that keep us, humans, sanity in check.

This was the case until recently when I came across this unique individual who has

changed and shaped my perspective of life. That is, Chadwick Aaron Boseman. Boseman was

born on November 29, 1976, in South Carolina. He was an American Playwright and actor. He

played the iconic character T'Challa / Black Panther in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. When I

say iconic, I mean that this man shined a light in the African American community and the rest of

the world. But that's beside the point. Let me tell you how he impacted me, Yusuf Hussein.

One day I was surfing the web for inspirational videos. I came to find myself watching

Boseman’s Howard graduation speech. I can say by far this video has touched my soul in a very

unbelievable way. One thing I couldn't forget is that he said, "You should rather find purpose

than a job or a career. Purpose crosses disciplines. Purpose is an essential element of you. It is

the reason you are on the planet at this particular time in history.” (Boseman, 02:05). At that

moment, a light bulb sparked in my brain. I only get one shot at life, so I told myself, why not do

something you love, even if you die trying. From then on, I've decided my purpose is to help my

beloved Kenya by rebuilding it from the ground up. To do this, I'll need to pursue a business

course in college to understand how the economy works back home. From there, I'll take my

knowledge back to Africa to show people how to better run their businesses. I was fortunate

enough to live a very sustainable lifestyle and I don’t want to continue in the life of ease after I

am done with college. Boseman says ‘Take the harder way, the more complicated one, the one

with more failures at first than successes,” he said. “Then you will not regret it.”(06:05). Going

back to Africa is not easy but I know in the end I will not regret it.

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Thirdly, Boseman says that “Everything that you fought for was not for yourself, it was

for those who came after you.” (04:15). I shed a tear as I heard this statement coming from a

refugee background. This quote symbolizes my parents; if it weren't for them, I wouldn't be here

today. In the long run, it gave me the drive I needed to acquire an education that my parents

didn't have. And to act as a noble leader for future generations in my community. I've always had

this vision of leaving a legacy once I'm gone. I want people to remember me for all the good

personality traits I brought into this world, just like Chadwick.

So after the video was over, I came to a sense of reassurance that surprisingly made my

depression disappear. I began to value myself, along with knowing what I am capable of doing.

Looking back now, I have seen how naive I was. Heroes do exist; they are just saving people in

their unique ways. Boseman is truly a hero.

.

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