Significant Experience Essay, Research Paper

I am violently warring for peace. I know this is a paradox, and I’m

rather proud because it is true. Passivity has been a lifelong threat,

laziness a constant lure in my search for identity. This world begs

me to succumb to existing in the image of someone else, it asks

only that I slip silently and blindly into the niche it provides instead

of carving my own. I required a long time to work up courage to

fight for the serenity I had glimpsed in hot summer woods and in

lovingly handled books read late until the early morning. Doubt had

established itself in my mind at some early age, when or why I do

not know, and I could trust any person or group more than myself.

Doubt begat fear, and fear gave birth to obscuring myself from the

eyes of the world while I was a child.

Now, I am dedicated to the fight, after over five years of fear and

immobility. I rejected the easiest way out of life, and demanded

truth. I strengthened my body as I strengthened my mind against

the attacks I faced. When I was fifteen I started Tae Kwon Do, the martial arts class that was

offered through my school. I learned more about blocking, kicking, and punching in the first two

weeks of that class than I had known my entire life. My once powerless body, petite and thin, could

knock the wind out of someone with a well placed punch, and I could kick people taller than me in

the head. So what I could do, I did, and now my friends instinctively block when they see me grin

mischievously in their direction. I am content to know I have taught them something useful.

Last spring for the third time in a row, I shakily accepted my teacher’s hand as he congratulated me

on second place in women’s division sparring. It was a bittersweet triumph, three times now I have

lost to the same girl. She has become an icon for everything I wish to triumph over in this world. She

is beautiful, hair like black silk, impeccable taste in clothing,makeup like a Renaissance painting, and

average when it comes to everything else. I watch her silently stride into art class on three inch heels,

skirt above her knee, no runs in her stockings, and manicured nails smoothing invisible wrinkles from

he shirt. I look down at myself, one of my shirt buttons missing, securely replaced with a safety pin,

my comfortable green pants provide freedom of movement if little style, and my sturdy black shoes

have been with me for three years. I hear my voice laughing almost too loudly, physics notes are

sticking out of my sketchbook, and I am well aware of that I am not average.

I fight this opponent I have created and what she represents not because she chooses to live her life

by the beauty standard, and not because I feel inferior. We are at war because no one outside of

Tae Kwon Do class ever sees what she is capable of. They don’t know that those perfectly

moisturized hands can break through boards or leave your head spinning. No one knows that those

feet captured in three inch heeled prisons can leave you hurting for days, bruised where you

blocked, bruised and bleeding where you failed to. I fight her because she is a symbol of how I tried

to hide myself and my potential. I’m tired of being afraid of how the world will respond to me, and I

war against the part of myself that would rather just please fashion magazines and popular concepts.

Peace comes from accepting my identity, not from hiding it. I will laugh loudly at outside ideas of who I am supposed to be, kick down the opposition to my goals, and I will continue to fight

until I have my peace.