This I Believe Essay
Consider this: If we are all unique individuals, how may we be considered unique? I believe that the simple fact that we are all unique, and all have flaws, makes us all equal. Because we all know that nobody’s perfect, but our flaws put every individual on the same level.
I’ve been told, and have read quotes stating that the only way you can find true inner happiness is to stop comparing yourself to others, and instead to start to recognize what makes you beautiful and unique. After I had thought about this for a while, and even tried practicing it, I found it nearly impossible to be able to do such a thing. But in the process, I discovered something that I found pretty interesting. Everyone is composed of many aspects; too many to list, really. But there is not one person that may be considered “perfect”, because while some factors to a person’s personality may be very well expressed, not all of the others ever are.
When I look at myself, I can immediately name several things that I am proud of that make me who I am. But at the same time, I can definitely name some concepts that I need to work on, and I’m sure most people are able to do the same for themselves. But as my own example, I can tell you that some aspects that compose my character I am proud of are: how easily I can talk to some people, my moderate athletic ability, and, more specifically, my ability to easily conduct research on the Internet. However, some areas of personality I could definitely improve on include: thinking about things before I say them, my laziness, and my ability to remember people and their names after I have met them. These are just a few of my many pros and cons, as I’m sure everyone has many of.
This is what makes us unique, and at a broad understanding, being that everyone is unique, no one is. But when you key in on what actually makes individuals unique, you can understand that one of the most beautiful things about us humans is that our equality is in essence of our differentiation.
I’ve been told, and have read quotes stating that the only way you can find true inner happiness is to stop comparing yourself to others, and instead to start to recognize what makes you beautiful and unique. After I had thought about this for a while, and even tried practicing it, I found it nearly impossible to be able to do such a thing. But in the process, I discovered something that I found pretty interesting. Everyone is composed of many aspects; too many to list, really. But there is not one person that may be considered “perfect”, because while some factors to a person’s personality may be very well expressed, not all of the others ever are.
When I look at myself, I can immediately name several things that I am proud of that make me who I am. But at the same time, I can definitely name some concepts that I need to work on, and I’m sure most people are able to do the same for themselves. But as my own example, I can tell you that some aspects that compose my character I am proud of are: how easily I can talk to some people, my moderate athletic ability, and, more specifically, my ability to easily conduct research on the Internet. However, some areas of personality I could definitely improve on include: thinking about things before I say them, my laziness, and my ability to remember people and their names after I have met them. These are just a few of my many pros and cons, as I’m sure everyone has many of.
This is what makes us unique, and at a broad understanding, being that everyone is unique, no one is. But when you key in on what actually makes individuals unique, you can understand that one of the most beautiful things about us humans is that our equality is in essence of our differentiation.
This I Believe Essay Reflection
For the This I Believe assignment, we had to write an essay about something that we have strong beliefs about. We simply started off by choosing something we had strong beliefs in, and learned how to put it into literature in the form of a personal essay. A personal essay isn’t so much a persuasive essay, but it is used to express what the writer does solely believe in, and should use: narrative coherence, communal relevance, and authentic voice. Authentic voice allows the reader to pick up on your personality based simply upon your writing, narrative coherence is the use of story and human experience to help back up your belief, and communal relevance is just writing in order to appeal to the general audience that will be reading your essay, in order to keep their attention.
In my essay, I wrote about how I believe the fact that everyone is unique, with many positive and negative traits, makes everyone equal. It was kind of funny to think about at first, being that what makes us unique is what makes us equal, but I realized that this is something I had thought about before. I had a tendency in the past to compare myself to others, and try to find traits that made them better than me, but I just found myself full of envy that lead to self-degradation. I practiced avoiding doing that, and found myself reflecting, more often, on the traits about myself that I am proud about, and further trying to express them. But, like anyone else, I have my negative traits, too, and that’s what makes me equal as an individual. This project has really given me a great, specific perspective on not only humanity as a whole, but myself on a person.
I’m proud of my ability to use authentic voice in my essay. I felt like I got a lot off my chest that I had actually been thinking about for a while. For example, in my essay, I listed off some of my not-so-great traits, like: “thinking about things before I say them, my laziness, and my ability to remember people and their names after I have met them”. But I am also able to express some of my better traits, like “how easily I can talk to some people, my moderate athletic ability, and, more specifically, my ability to easily conduct research on the Internet”. And I go further into how these affect me as a person, which can reflect on my personality.
If I were to send my essay to NPR’s This I Believe, I would definitely need to make a lot of refinement. First off, I would include, and maybe add, another section that was entirely narrative, to help improve the narrative coherence in my essay. I’d also replace all of the second-person literature with first-person, because it is, after all, a personal essay. Further, I am at lack of supporting details, so adding a lot of those couldn’t hurt!
In going through the process of writing and refining my essay, I think I’ve somewhat changed the way I look at individuals and humanity, because in going deep into what I believe, and writing it down, I have started to more thoroughly apply it to myself, and kind of go through a change that allows me to have a deeper, more meaningful perspective on the people I see every day, or on rare occasion.
In my essay, I wrote about how I believe the fact that everyone is unique, with many positive and negative traits, makes everyone equal. It was kind of funny to think about at first, being that what makes us unique is what makes us equal, but I realized that this is something I had thought about before. I had a tendency in the past to compare myself to others, and try to find traits that made them better than me, but I just found myself full of envy that lead to self-degradation. I practiced avoiding doing that, and found myself reflecting, more often, on the traits about myself that I am proud about, and further trying to express them. But, like anyone else, I have my negative traits, too, and that’s what makes me equal as an individual. This project has really given me a great, specific perspective on not only humanity as a whole, but myself on a person.
I’m proud of my ability to use authentic voice in my essay. I felt like I got a lot off my chest that I had actually been thinking about for a while. For example, in my essay, I listed off some of my not-so-great traits, like: “thinking about things before I say them, my laziness, and my ability to remember people and their names after I have met them”. But I am also able to express some of my better traits, like “how easily I can talk to some people, my moderate athletic ability, and, more specifically, my ability to easily conduct research on the Internet”. And I go further into how these affect me as a person, which can reflect on my personality.
If I were to send my essay to NPR’s This I Believe, I would definitely need to make a lot of refinement. First off, I would include, and maybe add, another section that was entirely narrative, to help improve the narrative coherence in my essay. I’d also replace all of the second-person literature with first-person, because it is, after all, a personal essay. Further, I am at lack of supporting details, so adding a lot of those couldn’t hurt!
In going through the process of writing and refining my essay, I think I’ve somewhat changed the way I look at individuals and humanity, because in going deep into what I believe, and writing it down, I have started to more thoroughly apply it to myself, and kind of go through a change that allows me to have a deeper, more meaningful perspective on the people I see every day, or on rare occasion.