University of Chicago's Educator Award: Another Nomination

To Whom It May Concern:
       I am eighteen, about to start college, and consequently victim to everything everyone else enjoys teaching me about how I ought to carry out the rest of my days. And who better to showcase these lessons for life—these lifetimes of lessons—these speeches, self-helps, sermons, and, yes, nomination letters—than the very people who embody them?
       It’s time for show and tell.
       “Be yourself!”
       Warren Buffett tells us this! Michelle Obama tells us this! Even Lady Gaga tell us this!
       But what do they show us? What do we learn from what they say, and what do we learn from what we see?
       Examples of wealth, power, and celebrity are certainly lucrative, but hardly liberating. After all, what about the rest of us, who, when most ourselves, are not opulent, obeyed, or ogled at? Hopefully we all can follow our hearts to fulfillment, but heaven forbid all of us be all-stars.
       Enter my savior incarnate.

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