I'm young and stupid, and I know that it's ridiculous to ponder this question so early in my life, but when you live in a family like mine, well I can't help but wonder what is my purpose on this planet, what am I supposed to do with my life. I could constantly ask how it got to the point of me confessing my biggest question to myself. Or I could ask why I'm sleeping on the couch looking through the shutters of the living room window at the moon, when my bed is available for me to sleep in. Maybe I should ask why I'm writing to you through this self reflective short story. I live in the city, not Manhattan but Brooklyn. I wonder if maybe, just maybe, I am in a rush to find out who I am because everything in my life is so fast paced that I feel the need to speed up everything for myself. This includes life decisions and questioning everything I've ever done. I'm not going to confess to you my appearance or name just my story. I come from a well bred family that strives to do our best in everything. At least those are the words that have been forced down my throat at every social event. Those are the words that have created my alter ego; the one that everyone sees. The person people see at school and parties and family gatherings. But what am I really like? I guess that's what I'm trying to figure out by writing this. Am I an athlete, a good student, a city or country kid, or am I all of these combined? Is it possible to all of those things combined? According to my family, no. According to them I have to be a star debater, or a tennis player, one of the two, while being an exceptional student. My family is constantly hinting at what I should do with my life, your a good debater, you should be a lawyer, the Money is good. Or they'll say, your an amazing athlete, you should never stop. They call me selfish but I've always done what they've asked, even if it took some backbreaking. Another thing about this piece, I can't promise that it won't be sporadic. Anyway, to focus on one of the issues, tennis. In order to understand my thoughts, you'll need some background. For the last two years I have been injured off and on. Last year it was my elbow, this year something is wrong with leg, it's been hurting too much to play. My parents think that this is my way of telling them that I don't want to play anymore, just because I refuse to go to the gym and work on my tennis everyday. I've played tennis my entire life, and now that I'm actually good my parents expect me to always play amazing, so when they get any less they raise hell about it. Lately though, I'm thinking about my entire life and how tennis has effected it. When I started it was for fun, but now my parents expect me to kick ass all the time because I've been playing for a long time. I just don't feel the joy in it that I used to. Now this could be for two reasons, one is that it's just not interesting, and two is that it's because my parents expect so much from me. It's mostly the second one though, because every time that they are not near me while I play, I have fun. They say that they care about that but I highly doubt it. Maybe one day if I'm a parent I'll understand. So that's one issue, but the other one is debate. I love debate, and I've been doing it for five years now. Every time I debate I get this adrenaline rush, like I'm arguing for my life, like I'm invincible. Like nothing can stop me from investing everything I have into the one speech I'm making. Of coarse when I experience this I usually get good results for the debate. However my commitment is not in question, what's in question is could this be my life? On one hand I love to do it, but on the other hand, what if I'm not ready to handle other people's problems, clearly I can barely handle my own. I guess the real question here is should I keep listening to my parents and let them chose my fate or should I embrace what I have, and choose my own path? I think that maybe I should finally stand up to them and choose my own path, that I should tip off the mask I've been wearing for so long. Rip off the mask of complete confidence and chip on my shoulder and perfection. And I should replace it with who I am, a confused not so confident person, now this may lead to my destruction, but at least I'll have peace of mind knowing that it was my own doing. And during this time I may be vulnerable, but someone once said that in order to grow stronger, we need to be weak as well. So that's what I'll do, and who knows what I'll do with my life? I guess I'll just figure it out myself. So, so what I'm looking out the window of my living room at the moon while lying on my couch. I'll figure myself out in due time, and maybe this experience will be key in figuring everything out, but that's for another time right now, I need to just be a kid and enjoy myself. But mostly I need to be me.