Undergraduate / 'National Institute of Mountaineering' Common App Essay: A significant Experince [4]

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The action of climbing up a rock face and then climbing up a narrow vertical cleft was foreign to me. I had a little experience the day before, learning foot and hand placement, but collectively I had no clue. I spent fifteen days at one of India's National Institute of Mountaineering.

A lovely morning, the air was crisp with the sun maturing over the horizon. Everyone was in tracksuits, with harnesses made with climbing rope, tied around their waists. I told myself, could I do the impossible? Before me, stood a rock face that had a very steep gradient. I had a helmet and a safety line that was connected to the harness I made by a carabineer. The question was: how would I make my ascent? To my surprise, I was at the top; I was filled with success. I did not know defeat, for I had climbed up a rock face, trusting my skills to save me. I was proud of myself. All that was left was to chimney. The breeze chilled the sweat on my body. My hands quivered, my feet were sliding losing their grip, and my back was sliding of the rough rock face. I was in a very incommodious place.

A feeling of claustrophobia was engulfed my mind; the walls were getting too close, while I was still climbing. Ideas of falling down the chimney were crowded into my head, even though I was just two feet off the ground. Just then I realized that all this panic was originated from movies I've seen over the years. I was scared, but really there was nothing to be scared of. The media is too prolific when it creates figures of imaginary characters and worlds that feel so real. Watching them again and again, I'd loved to imagine myself in that computer-generated world. The only way to live a life like that would be act in the real world. The media's character is omnipotent. People have been living a fool's paradise, hurting themselves while trying to live their perfect yet fictive lives. I was caught between a fictive world and the real word of a chimney.

I made it to the top of the chimney and back down. There was no parkour or death-defying leaps or running up a wall like a ninja. It was all me. It was difficult but ultimately I faced my fears. After every climb, ever since that moment, my confidence keeps growing, trusting what I know, and not what I see. I recollect the instance of trepidation before physical workouts and remember how to fight through it. Whether are not I have been successful in a climb, I have always pushed myself harder with subsequent climbs, I have achieved high goals and each success a desire to reach out farther.