Very Vertiable Values

Here is a school paper's rough draft in which Virgil (speaking the first person) discusses ideals central in his life. Virgil invites openly critiques or any mistakes (or found contractions) in the paper, and would thank you heartily for your time in reading.

Looking within oneself, and carefully selecting a brief list of accepted values about life and humanity and the people populating the Earth is a rather daunting task, for what limited number can describe a creation of such infinite possibilities? I suppose this manifests in different values for a diverse people. Nevertheless, the values that I have come to accept, to cherish and myself attempt to emulate in the forming of my person are intelligence, diligence, courtesy, and independence. These four values, I like to think, describe me, my ideal self – a goal to which I take aim to become. And so, reader, I invite you to delve far into my mind, into what has made Virgil himself: read on.
Intelligence, by definition, is mental acuteness. Surely of each of the principles presented here, this one ranks highest, but too, was the first I recall hanging upon my Wall of Accepted Values. My founding of intelligence began when I first visited the greatest of my friends at his house during the second grade. He was called Jeff Kolodner. The first I observed at his house, around his family, was that each of the Kolodners were brilliant, in my sight, each in their own ways. Jeff’s father was an assistant minister at my church, who, whenever he might speak, would draw attention in. His mother was musical – I can still hear the ringing of her harmonious piano playing. His brother was an artist in his own right – pencil drawings, without color, so lifelike and accurate, expressed more to me at the time then than did any of Picasso’s works. And Jeff: an appeasing blend of each of these unique traits. I felt so small intellectually, and wanted to be just like Jeff. He taught me to play chess, and gave me my first lessons in basic strategy. He taught me to use my brain, and to not allow others to do the thinking for me, in everything he did. I remember coming home and turning the television on that night, seeing a glimpse of mindlessness in a cartoon, then immediately switching it off. Instead, I picked up The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, which Jeff had loaned to me, and reading until embraced by sleep. Jeff had a great influence on my life, and I think his family, to me, symbolizes what true intelligence is. Every time I thought of Jeff from then, I would strive to know more about everything taught to me, which, I believe, lead me wholly to my placement in the Extended Learning Program in elementary and middle school, which some might call ‘the apex of public schooling.’ After Jeff moved to Virginia in fourth grade, perhaps to quell my weeping soul, I stove to outdo my contemporaries by all intellectual means, realizing that doing my best, and being smart about life, thinking each day, challenging the brain, would bring success to this: rather like a very lifelike game of chess.
I also value courtesy, which is rather like consideration, or cooperation. I think anyone will eventually come to value this, not necessarily within themselves, but in others. Perhaps, walking through the hall, one slips and spills his textbooks, and another immediately aids the first in restoring the books to their previous position – that is courtesy. Simply doing unto others as one would have them do unto him. Some may know that teenage girls and their mothers are predestined to argue. I had, in third grade, both a teenage sister and a mother, who both were wont to argue very audaciously every off-night. Doing my something to my musing, this was a distraction, and I would tell myself, ‘I wonder if they’ve any courtesy for those about them?’ I never voiced this, but bore it in mind, and applied it to life. Whenever I might prepare to take offence at a friend, or brag, or anything cruel akin to that, I would remember that self-taught lesson about courtesy. Everyone appreciates it – a please or a thanks, something to brighten a dull day. And thus it became adopted into my being.
Diligence became an integral part of my lifestyle in fifth grade, and I am all the more pleased that it did. For this I can doubtlessly thank Mrs. Allen, my teacher. Of course, her class was an ELP course, but what I had seen of the program in fourth grade (my first year in it) had nothing to compare with hers. For the first time, two to three hours of time would be devoted to homework and studying nightly. Her class was rigorous for a fifth grader – diligence was desired. My grades, in the first half of the school year, were lower than those of the second half, largely because in the first I would take frequent breaks to assuage my homework boredom, and in the second I realized that homework would not do itself. This was diligence. With it, I became a greater studier, learned more, and remembered more of what I would learn. And from then, I can recall literally enjoying homework for the first time. Maybe this was the realization that education was precious. Or questionably it could have been that our homework just grew more interesting: but I believe that with that diligence I actually accepted a scholarly lifestyle and adapted to find pleasure in knowledge, and this has carried through to the rest of my school career thus far. Diligence is essential.
The final of my most esteemed values is independence. Apparently studies have been conducted that enlist teenagers to desire this very thing from their parents, and those elders that have influenced their childhood. This is not the independence to which I refer. I mean to write the independence to work alone, to sustain oneself by oneself. In eighth grade, there was a program called Finance Park which was a simulation of life, I suppose. All the participants had a job at a business, were made to pay taxes, and purchase cars, to donate to charity, to raise a family. Not literally, of course, but it taught us eighth graders what the real world would be like. I believe myself to have taken home an altered view of life after school from then – the world in which we live is harsh, and to survive, everyone must work to their fullest. That means that not always will there be someone to dig me from a rut, that there will not always be another person to lean upon. Instead, I should be independent – surely accepting the help of others when given, but able to do all I produce alone. I believe this value to be second only to intelligence, without which independence would be, to me, quite useless – for why depend upon oneself if his mind is not conditioned for it?
Now, reader, I have given to you a list of values which I form my life about – a set of ideals to which I hope to aspire, and fulfill in their entirety. With these I have given the genesis of their induction into my soul: intelligence, courtesy, diligence, and independence. They are integral to me, and to my lifestyle, and I find them used endlessly throughout my life. Without them, I certainly would not be the person I am today, the person I have become comfortable and quite satisfied with. And I invite you to contemplate, now, what values do you cherish in life – for what do you aim?