Undergraduate / Tree Top Tunnel Vision; Background Story [3]

This is the essay I am writing for the Common App.

Prompt: Some students have a background or story that is so central to their identity that they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

Tree Top Tunnel Vision

The rope is pulling away. There are only two options: to grab onto it or to be yanked forward by the safety cables at my waist. I choose to grab. I launch myself at the rope, grasp it. Whizzing through the air, I relax momentarily. Then, with dread, I realize it's not over yet: the net is approaching and I can either latch onto it, or swing backward, spinning, and lose all I've worked for. The net is within reach. I clutch at it, somehow hang on. Gasps from the Chinese crowd below. The music on the loudspeakers is playing, but I don't notice it. I'm trying to hang on with aching muscles, trying to breathe, while I remove the safety cables from the rope and attach them to the net. It is only after I let the now-useless rope drop behind me that I realize I forgot to scream.

It is May 22nd, 2012, and I am at the Bali Treetop Adventure Park, trying not to focus on the pain or the dizzying height at which I am. Built in an Indonesian forest, this is an obstacle course that makes me feel like a monkey scrambling through the jungle. For safety reasons, I am attached to the course with two safety cables- sometimes a zipline, also. Most of the course consists of hanging on to a thin wire and walking over obstacles that involve both the body and the mind. The Great Tarzan Jump is only the sixth of sixteen obstacles in the Adrenaline Black Circuit. The only reason I completed the other ten obstacles was because I couldn't conceive stopping. This intense focus, this tunnel vision, this determination to finish what I've started and to be the best at it, is a quality central to my identity.

Sometimes, as in Bali, it is a useful trait. I can read through War and Peace's epilogues or the Divine Comedy despite the fact that I would rather be walking outside or talking to friends. I can outline a biology textbook in a week, or write a full-length novel in a month, because at that moment it is the best thing to do in the world.

Other times, this tunnel vision causes problems-I can get so caught up in my task that I ignore important things: people, chores, relaxation. I become so involved in pursuing a path that I don't realize it is no longer the right direction-like in January 2013, when I decided to apply to the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest, Romania, only to realize, six months of preparation later, that Romania was not the right fit for me.

Had I not made these decisions, I would not be the person I am today. Without my tunnel vision, I would have dropped the medical school option much sooner, thus losing the opportunity for better communication with my Romanian family. I would know less of my birth country's history, literature, and culture.

If I did not have my intense focus, the rope would have dragged me forward. I would not have grabbed the net. Instead, I would have oscillated until I reached the ground, and then, having been booted from the tunnel, I would have said, exhausted, "I've had enough. No more."

But that is not how the obstacle course works. That is not how life works. The purpose of both is to set a goal and to follow that goal until you either have the results you want or until the goal no longer has meaning. Giving up is not an option, no matter how difficult the circumstances are. When you renounce something because it is too hard, you renounce success. It does not matter whether that success is money, status, or, most importantly, happiness and self-fulfillment. When you give up on an important goal, you give up on life.

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Thank you!