Free Narrative Essays - I Was Poor, Not Low Class :: Example Personal Narratives

I Was Poor, Not Low Class Remember as a child people would tell you, "You are what you eat." When you are fed fat, you will become fat. When fed violence, you become violent. A diet of anger will make you hate. Hunger will make you hungrier, or so it would seem. I think it is ironic that we teach children at a young age to judge people by means other than the content of their character. Then, we expect children to be honest and loving after being labeled by how others view them. After all, how many people, besides your closest friends and family, can walk into your room and point to items that give a reflection of who you really are? The thought of being that shallow and simple is unthinkable for most of the human species. Instead of being labeled by the world as it sees me, I plan to introduce myself to the world for who I really am. I have eaten from the plate of materialism, only to find that it tasted foul in my mouth. I bought the high-end stereo and the large television. I soon realized these possessions made me feel guilty because I was ignoring my upbringing. I was betraying all of the feelings that I felt as a child in a poor family. Now, my walls are bare because I do not like to surround myself with propaganda. The same propaganda advertisers flaunted in front of me while I was growing up in a lower income family, not lower class. The notion that the country's population is separated into classes by wealth, with the least wealthy deemed the lower class, is repulsive to me. I refuse to conform to the typical American consumer stereotype who needs material possessions to feel validated, ever again. My dorm room is highlighted by a loft I built myself. The loft was not purchased from a hardware store or from a designer catalog. I used my carpentry knowledge and my own two hands to carefully construct the perfect loft. The loft does not symbolize convenience or organization as most may think. It is a symbol of my incredible independence, even to a fault.