Personal Essay!

Personal Essay!

     Adversity, slaying the fierce dragon, saving the world, all are a part of one hero's journey. Although it is not the same for my journey I would say mine is not unlike it, respectively. My journey being that of moving from adolescence to a young adult. A journey, I am proud to say is nearly at its end.

     In high school I faced a lot of temptation. Whether it came from random people or some, of whom I was mildly acquainted. I was face to face with negative peer pressure with the desire to fit in with everyone else. Luckily for me, I was given a solid foundation to stand up against these desires to fit into "societal norms". (The foundation being my mother teaching me at a young age about what is right and wrong) But there was something missing from my foundation and that was a wall. A wall that would impede and totally usurp the peer pressure. Then I found my wall: (name removed), It turned out this little children's theatre located on [----] Street did far more than give me confidence to talk in front of people. It gave me the confidence to stand up to negative peer pressure. Every other day the director told us an inspiring quote and how she did not wish for us to learn through "sad experience". I remember quotes from Helen Keller, Martin Luther King Jr., and various other sources. I did not wish to learn from sad experience, so I took these lessons to heart and stood up to peer pressure.

     This is not to say that all peer pressure is bad. In fact, due to positive peer pressure I overcame a great fear of mine: needles. When push came to shove during the seasonal blood drive, I succumbed to positive peer pressure. The wall built from peer pressure allowed this to come through, because I knew it was for a good cause. I am proud to say that I have donated four times since then. 

     Overcoming this fear helped me move on to my final task. The final challenge was that of coming to terms with whom I am. We all hear it in the hallways, "that's gay." That doesn't really mean a positive thing, and it can take its toll on one psychologically, towards the point of depression. Verbal harassment (both direct and indirect) made me try to convince myself that I was something I am not, that I needed to fit in with everyone else. After struggling for several weeks, months, (occasionally, even now) I remembered the lessons I learned at (name removed) and all the people that didn't care about my societal indifference. I learned that what others say does not define me. I do!

     I started my journey for self discovery at adolescence. I vanquished the dreadful fear, and accomplished a task as noble as saving the world - discovering and accepting myself.

"Though I long to accomplish a great and noble task

it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if

they were great and noble."

   - Helen Keller        

So that up there is my personal essay for colleges. The colleges that I shan't be applying to because money is kind of an issue as of this moment. I figure that I shall knock my general education courses out of the way first before moving on to some expensive school and have to take the same courses there. I am still vacillating as towards what I want to do in the future, career wise. I am not 100% sure what I am passionate about at the moment due to me constantly changing my interests. Although I am interested in very artsy things, like dance and theatre, I am also interested in different forms of energy. That energy being a replacement for oil which I think has become too much of a necessity in society today. Of course that is just what I am interested in today. Who knows what I shall be interested in the year to come!? I most certainly do not.