Undergraduate / 'A timid countenance and window reflection' - My commonapp essay [2]

Hi guys, I've not really decided on the title yet. This is my common app essay.

# 1- EVALUATE A SIGNIFICANT EXPERIENCE, ACHIEVEMENT, RISK YOU HAVE TAKEN OR ETHICAL DILEMMA YOU HAVE FACED AND ITS IMPACT ON YOU

The reflection in my mirror tells me things nobody else could: the truth about myself. Meditating as I gaze at the mirror, I look beyond the superficial and delve into the being before me, amazed at how much the man in the mirror has changed. For the most part of my earlier years I hid in a shell. In my shell I was safe, protected from the scorching sun, raging thunderstorms and blizzards of human society. I suffered from an inferiority complex that made me vulnerable but solitude became my haven from the hurt I had become all too familiar with. The price of my solitude: missing out on the carefree bliss of childhood.

When I got into high school I began to crave human interactions without the ever present phobia of getting hurt and feeling inferior to others. I needed a way to build my confidence and get used to constantly fraternizing with people. So I took the risk, to solve the crux the only way I could: by becoming a Prefect. I knew that I had to force myself to change and as a prefect I would have to expose myself to what I had been avoiding. So, going through the registration, interview and subsequent election I became the health prefect of St Francis Xavier Minor Seminary.

The first time I spoke before the whole school, I was asked by the Head prefect to make an announcement on his behalf. "Prefects around?" came a shout from the back of the hall. "Yeah" I responded, voice tenuous. I felt the pressure of over two hundred eyes staring at me, waiting to hear what I would say. Two voices battled in my head, one urging me to ditch the announcement and make a run for it whilst the other goaded me on to stare at the ground and go on with the address. I took the latter's advice. With my gaze fixed on the ground I made the announcement speaking slowly but clearly. After I made the announcement I felt a wave of triumph. I had taken the first, crucial step towards achieving the new me. Andre Gide, a Nobel laureate once said "Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore" it had taken a lot of courage to stick my head out of the shell but gradually my body followed suite. It was not easy at first but with each address of the student body, each visit to the hospital with the sick, each command I issued to other students, my confidence bloomed and I became less and less like my old self.

The reflection in my mirror used to tell of a shelled man harboring a timid countenance. Now however, the shell less man before me exudes an aura of confidence and self-belief. He is testament to the fact that I have burned the bridge of solitude and used its flames to illumine my path to a happy ending.