UF Application Essay from January
This was the short essay I wrote in January for my application to University of Florida. I never got in praise God! He's got way better plans for me! Anyway, I ran into it when writing my essay for admittance to Brevard College and thought I might as well post it. It's not the best...I was really pressed for time when I wrote this...but it's aight.
What if life is not about me? Who am I? Why the heck do I have to tuck in my shirt?! Such metaphysical pondering has plagued me throughout my life as it does many intellectually gifted, college-bound individuals; the evidence of this being our unending search for peace-giving answers in science - a very prideful, and unintelligent move to say the least. The importance of science I am not questioning; it is the conventional motive I find upsetting.
Neither of my parents were wealthy growing up, nor did either of them go to college. They divorced when I was a year old, and the courts granted my parents with joint-custody, my mother receiving residential custody. My father sold almost everything he had to not lose me in court. This laid the framework for an upbringing in the doctrine of the American Dream - work hard, make money, be happy. To the dismay of both my parents, and the rest of the world, their faith never produced fruit because the American Dream is based on a lie, a lie I continued to believe throughout my entire youth. It is simply this: the world revolves around me. Scientifically blasphemous as this is (considering all of nature disputes this audacious statement), there is still some driving, corrupt force within the soul of every man that demands this fact to be true in a metaphorical sense. This insatiable, deep-rooted self-absorption covertly controlled my life since birth. Obedience was a means of avoiding pain and receiving praise. Good grades were a means of feeling a sense of accomplishment and hope of receiving fame and fortune in the future. Community service and religion (supposed signs of humility) were a means of pompously feeling respectable. Even love was tarnished by thoughts of how I could benefit from the relationship. Everything in American society screams, “Life is about you!” Yet, something deep within my being knew this to be untrue. Why did immense wealth not bring happiness to my mother? Why did movie stars end up on drugs? Why did it feel wrong to be selfish?
The more questions I asked, the more questions I received, yet, phenomenally, the questions would always dead-end at the idea of there being a universal creator - something bigger than myself or anyone else. This idea by no means is original, for “there is nothing new under the sun, only endless repackaging”; since the birth of the nations people have looked to a higher power to explain life. But this idea combined with my search for freedom from myself - a disgusting, prideful spec in the universe - inexplicably drove me to Christ. In Jesus, the man mocked and discredited by the intellectual community, I found the cure to my disease, and I will never relinquish my belief in Him. My identity resides in Christ.
Life is not about me: the most beautiful, freeing idea known to man. That is the message I feel called to bring to the University of Florida.
What if life is not about me? Who am I? Why the heck do I have to tuck in my shirt?! Such metaphysical pondering has plagued me throughout my life as it does many intellectually gifted, college-bound individuals; the evidence of this being our unending search for peace-giving answers in science - a very prideful, and unintelligent move to say the least. The importance of science I am not questioning; it is the conventional motive I find upsetting.
Neither of my parents were wealthy growing up, nor did either of them go to college. They divorced when I was a year old, and the courts granted my parents with joint-custody, my mother receiving residential custody. My father sold almost everything he had to not lose me in court. This laid the framework for an upbringing in the doctrine of the American Dream - work hard, make money, be happy. To the dismay of both my parents, and the rest of the world, their faith never produced fruit because the American Dream is based on a lie, a lie I continued to believe throughout my entire youth. It is simply this: the world revolves around me. Scientifically blasphemous as this is (considering all of nature disputes this audacious statement), there is still some driving, corrupt force within the soul of every man that demands this fact to be true in a metaphorical sense. This insatiable, deep-rooted self-absorption covertly controlled my life since birth. Obedience was a means of avoiding pain and receiving praise. Good grades were a means of feeling a sense of accomplishment and hope of receiving fame and fortune in the future. Community service and religion (supposed signs of humility) were a means of pompously feeling respectable. Even love was tarnished by thoughts of how I could benefit from the relationship. Everything in American society screams, “Life is about you!” Yet, something deep within my being knew this to be untrue. Why did immense wealth not bring happiness to my mother? Why did movie stars end up on drugs? Why did it feel wrong to be selfish?
The more questions I asked, the more questions I received, yet, phenomenally, the questions would always dead-end at the idea of there being a universal creator - something bigger than myself or anyone else. This idea by no means is original, for “there is nothing new under the sun, only endless repackaging”; since the birth of the nations people have looked to a higher power to explain life. But this idea combined with my search for freedom from myself - a disgusting, prideful spec in the universe - inexplicably drove me to Christ. In Jesus, the man mocked and discredited by the intellectual community, I found the cure to my disease, and I will never relinquish my belief in Him. My identity resides in Christ.
Life is not about me: the most beautiful, freeing idea known to man. That is the message I feel called to bring to the University of Florida.