Editing and Proofreading of Customer\'s

EDITING AND PROOFREADING OF CUSTOMER'S ORIGINAL DOCUMENT

"Try not to become a man of success, but a man of value." --Albert Einstein

Success is a state of mind in which we dream of acquiring materialistic goods that are not needed, but revered. However, a man of value is a man who possesses morals and does what is needed to change the world around him -- for the better.

My father was a man of tremendous value who did everything he could to help me achieve the best life possible until the moment he died. His main goal in life was for me to live a better life than his. Unfortunately, he never had the chance to see the culmination of his dreams before he died from lung cancer.

When my father was first diagnosed on May 14, 2004, I was taught that cancer was not a disease of death, but a disease of change. It was described as a chance for every sick man to change and begin to appreciate the things that he has. Soon, he was diagnosed with pneumonia; he grew weaker, lost a tremendous amount of weight, and he went completely bald. He began to take on the appearance of a helpless man, lost in an overwhelming situation. His lungs and kidneys failed only a few months later and to a twelve-year-old looking at the tangle of tubes and medical monitoring equipment surrounding him, my father looked like a bug caught in a spider web. A month before he passed, his heart failed, his brain shut down, and he fell into a coma. The coma allowed us to say our last goodbyes and he died two days before my birthday. [Note: I'd leave out the strong metaphors for this essay; that's why I took it out.]

Since my father's death, life has taken on a different and more meaningful perspective. The circumstances of losing my father helped me define the type of person I hope to become, partly to fulfill my father's hopes and dreams for me and partly because of what I witnessed strangers try to do on his behalf. During my father's illness, my family was poor and unable to afford the health care that he needed and deserved. However, we are members of a church dedicated to community service and many doctors in the church generously contributed their time and efforts to my father, which I believe prolonged his life. None of them knew my father particularly well but they treated him like a brother strictly out of their benevolence and concern rather than for monetary compensation.

I was extremely touched by their efforts and it inspired me to aspire to practice medicine to do the same for others someday as well as to fulfill my father's dreams for me in the process. My father would have wanted me to do something meaningful with my life that benefited others and to achieve something more worthwhile than accumulating wealth or material possessions. While that accomplishment is a long way off, I am very hopeful that this inspiration will help carry me through the personal sacrifices that I realize will be necessary on my part for the foreseeable future and I am completely ready to meet that challenge.

Many great scholars have suggested that it is our duty and our responsibility to "do good" in life, to find genuine motivation from the heart, and to expecting nothing in return besides the satisfaction of the value of our accomplishments in their benefit to others. My Christian upbringing included concepts such as loving my neighbors as I love myself. In that regard, I often recall the story of the poor old woman who possessed nothing more than a handful of pennies but who gave all she had to the poor despite having little more than they did. I was taught that humbling one's self enough to give to others before doing for one's self, one honors the will of God.

I have tried to implement that principle in my life by enrolling in a community service organization called spell out the organization here (FTFT). In the FTFT, I volunteered at hospitals, took part in charity fundraisers, visited the elderly and helped renovate schools. My favorite initiative was the "midnight run" during which we collected all types of clothing, sanitary items, and prepared and distributed hot meals to the needy living on the streets of Denver. It was nothing short of a life-changing experience. Seeing people sleeping in subway stations and in boxes helped me appreciate the roof I have over my head as I never had before. Also, I was not prepared for the way that something as little as having a choice of what color shirt or hat they received seemed to restore a small measure of autonomy and control that are undoubtedly lost living on the street.