have you ever...
-moved out of your house and lived on your own?
-paid your own rent?
-paid your own bills whether they be for electricity, water or other utilities like the net or a landline?
-paid for your own tuition
-paid monthlies for a condominium you bought?
-paid monthlies for a 2nd-hand car you bought?
-paid for your own gas money?
-drove your way through insane traffic on stickshift to fetch your parents from the airport when they fly in to visit you or drove them back for their return flight?
-paid for your own ticket home during the holidays or long weekends?
-paid for your brother's weekly grocery?
-bought your brother/mom/dad something expensive when there was no occasion just because you saw how much he liked an item?
-paid the monthly for something your brother bought?
-paid for you brother's gas or bus ticket?
-footed an expensive restaurant bill when your family comes to visit or when you go home to visit?
-paid your parent's credit card bill?
-lent your parents large sums of money even if the little voice in your head says that there's a great possibility that you won't get paid or if you would, it won't be anytime soon?

not that it means anything, but i don't think many people my age would have said yes to half of the things on the list. most of the people i know that are my age still live under their parent's roof, drive a car their parents gave them or are driving their parent's car and the only form of bill they pay is their own credit card bills or phone bills.

i'm not comparing simply because anyone who really knows me knows that i don't get a kick out of it, much less put people down so that i could just feel better about myself. this post, more than anything, is more for me than anyone else. to remind me that although there are some goals i set myself that i still haven't reached, there are some that i already have and there are some that i have reached even if i didn't set them. my dad, though he doesn't say it much knows that i have grown up to be a successful person. i sometimes think that the reason he doesn't say it is because he thinks or perhaps as a parent, knows that i can go further. that this is just the beginning. well i don't know if i'm going to find myself in a plateau soon, a steady climb or god forbid, a descent. whatever the next year brings me, i hope to outdo myself. make myself proud and more importantly, make my parents proud.