Personal Narrative: My Gambling Debt

Four years ago, my family lost everything. Our home, car, and well-being were taken away from us. Since we had to sell our home, my family of four, plus our two dogs, lived in a crowded, tiny bedroom. The night when I found out the secret of my father’s gambling debt, I cried to the point where my ears were clogged and my nose was stuffed, and I couldn’t breathe. Eventually, my sobs turned into screams.

I began to drown in self-pity, blaming myself as the cause of this debt, for spending money carelessly. The future began to look bleak in my eyes: the rest of my life would be financially unstable, difficult, and heartbreaking. Slowly, the debt got the worst of me as I shifted into a resentful person, outraged at my father for making a foolish mistake of gambling that cost us everything. My father hid the debt

I couldn’t allow my bitterness to cloud my perspective on my future anylonger. Conclusively, I gave up my resentment to forgive my father for his gambling mistake. At 16 years old, I had to change from feeling devastated to ambitious.

I realized my father’s problem became my own responsibility to fix. I looked continuously for a job to bring another source of income. The rejections came one after another, but that didn’t discourage me. Finally, my search came to an end: I found a job at a retirement home, but it was far from luxurious. I was constantly on my feet, cleaning up garbage, and getting harassed by the elderly daily. When I realized long days of work wasn’t enough to pay off the debt, I felt hopeless, once again.

Now, two years later, I’m much more self-disciplined by working through my struggles to pay off the debt. I sacrificed my time, energy, and mental health to grow up for the sake of my future as I learned the true value of a dollar. I now know how to persevere through hardship to conquer the