conversation that changed my mind

For our MSP week five assignment we were told to interview an adult, either mentor, family member, or someone you knew.

My uncle came to visit after months of not contacting us so I found the perfect chance to interview someone.
As I asked him the questions that we were told to ask, I found really amazing new things that even I didn't know about my family.
My uncle grew up in a ranch being the 5th youngest kid of the 12 that my grandmother had. From a young age, things seemed difficult because my grandfather had to work extra hard to be able to provide food for all of his kids. my uncle started working when he was 7 years old by helping out his dad raise the crops, or even go with other people to work in the field for 8 hours and at the end of the day he got $40 pesos which today would be less than 4 dollars. When I asked him about something that changed his life when he was young, he answered, "having a job at such an early age was hard, sometimes my hands would be in pain from the work; however, having to go through all that made me realize that I had to have a better future to help out my brothers and sisters and parents."
As our conversation continued, I asked him about money and what would be a good advice for someone. His response was:
don't spend money on something that you'll only need once and then you'll just throw it away because it becomes useless, spend only on things that you know will be vital and will be needed throughout the years.
when he came to the United States, he got a job as a chef and got paid well and he was able to send money to our grandparents which eased things for us that were living there because we were able to go to school instead of having to work as well. He also started sponsoring a kid from another country. Every month he would send $30.00 to the program and the kid would send him letter and pictures. I remember that my uncle had a picture that the kid sent him where he was wearing new shoes and his smile on his face made you want to give all your money away to him so he could be happy.

His view of happiness and joy is to work hard, help others even if they aren't thankful sometimes, and help your family.