Lmu Statement
Antonin GALAYA
QUESTION 1: Why do you think Fr. Lawton says the ‘‘journey to be oneself’’ seems the riskiest of all journeys? What risks lie ahead in your college career as you embark on the ‘‘adventure’’ of discovering and becoming yourself?
It takes a life time to live a life. And the Polish saying states, “. . . it takes, “sharing” a bag of salt to get to know your mate”. However, getting to know oneself is a far more difficult due to the near impossible task of taking oneself seriously. When I say seriously, I don’t mean simply to have dreams and aspirations, goals and designs, plans and objectives—I mean to take yourself seriously enough, but not too seriously, to keep your eye on the prize, and work hard to achieve your greatest self; hopefully a self that will serve others and therefore glorify God.
And taking risk, great risk, is what acts as the training ground, the boot camp, of making one stronger, and more aware of individual gifts, talents and skills. And the opportunity to attend college is a unique experience for me in particular, a foreign student from a small island in the Caribbean Sea. There are a number of risks I anticipate. Firstly, being so far from my family, and living abroad in a totally different culture; becoming something, some one so different from my parents, and hoping against hope that they will not be offended. Secondly, living and learning in another language, culture and political climate offer advantages many people, my own little sister, won’t have. How will that change me? For the better, I’m sure, but it is a risk. Lastly, another risk I think about is, maybe my worst character defects: being lazy and a bit too passive will get the better of me some days, when I know I should be in the library, or in study hall, or re-reading that chapter.
LMU’s commitment to “educating the whole person” is the perfect environment to help me take the risks necessary to discover my gifts and talents, and to enhance...
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