fp2014
Nov 9, 2014
Undergraduate / "if only I weren't blind..." - St. Mary college essay about transformative experience [4]
I think you should expand the challenges you experienced getting accustomed to being blind after the surgery.
It was sometime during the late morning on May fifth, 2010 that I woke up and found myself in utter darkness. This abrupt loss of my sight was the opposite of what everyone was expecting after the operation. This was only a couple of days from when the doctors had removed the tumor found in my brain. From that day, my eyesight was supposed to improve, which it did until that morning where it just simply vanished! Even the doctors seemed to be lost for words, so after a few months of no change, everyone seemed to accept silently that my sight may never return.
The loss of my ability to see brought with it an enormous change in my attitude. Surprisingly, I did not have to struggle with accepting my blindness as much as with letting go of my ego. I always have a high standard of myself and like to work alone to achieve it. However, becoming blind, I realized I have also become dependent on others, at least to a certain extent. This thought made the act of asking for helps felt very uncomfortable for me. Moreover, even after succeeding in speaking out my needs, I then often struggled with lowering my standard. Being a perfectionist, as my dad said I am, pushes me to work hard, but in these cases, all it does is to make me even more frustrated. It is just so difficult to make things perfect when you can't do them by yourself!
Nonetheless, when I think about it, I realized these necessary adaptations have helped me to become more flexible and open-minded. I finally accepted that eventually, I would have to learn to work with others. I became aware that, my comfort zone can only expand when I step out of it. As a result, although I still bite my lip from time to time when having to ask for helps, I would finally do it, and with more ease each time.
My blindness also teaches me to be optimistic with life and problems. It is not as if all the problems I faced derived from being blind; Some of them are just teen issues that anyone who are teens have to face. The real issue is the fact it is often easier for me to just blame them all on my disability. I often think, "if only I weren't blind, I would do better, I would not be this stress..." and so on. Unfortunately, I am also aware that I am blaming the problems on something over which I have no control, and often is not even the real cause of the problem. Thus, over time, I have trained my thinking to search for the bright side of things and to appreciate whatever my blindness gives me. Today, whenever the thought of, "if only I weren't blind..." pops up, I would complete it with something positive like, "I wouldn't have such a fantastic life!"
I think you should expand the challenges you experienced getting accustomed to being blind after the surgery.
It was sometime during the late morning on May fifth, 2010 that I woke up and found myself in utter darkness. This abrupt loss of my sight was the opposite of what everyone was expecting after the operation. This was only a couple of days from when the doctors had removed the tumor found in my brain. From that day, my eyesight was supposed to improve, which it did until that morning where it just simply vanished! Even the doctors seemed to be lost for words, so after a few months of no change, everyone seemed to accept silently that my sight may never return.
The loss of my ability to see brought with it an enormous change in my attitude. Surprisingly, I did not have to struggle with accepting my blindness as much as with letting go of my ego. I always have a high standard of myself and like to work alone to achieve it. However, becoming blind, I realized I have also become dependent on others, at least to a certain extent. This thought made the act of asking for helps felt very uncomfortable for me. Moreover, even after succeeding in speaking out my needs, I then often struggled with lowering my standard. Being a perfectionist, as my dad said I am, pushes me to work hard, but in these cases, all it does is to make me even more frustrated. It is just so difficult to make things perfect when you can't do them by yourself!
Nonetheless, when I think about it, I realized these necessary adaptations have helped me to become more flexible and open-minded. I finally accepted that eventually, I would have to learn to work with others. I became aware that, my comfort zone can only expand when I step out of it. As a result, although I still bite my lip from time to time when having to ask for helps, I would finally do it, and with more ease each time.
My blindness also teaches me to be optimistic with life and problems. It is not as if all the problems I faced derived from being blind; Some of them are just teen issues that anyone who are teens have to face. The real issue is the fact it is often easier for me to just blame them all on my disability. I often think, "if only I weren't blind, I would do better, I would not be this stress..." and so on. Unfortunately, I am also aware that I am blaming the problems on something over which I have no control, and often is not even the real cause of the problem. Thus, over time, I have trained my thinking to search for the bright side of things and to appreciate whatever my blindness gives me. Today, whenever the thought of, "if only I weren't blind..." pops up, I would complete it with something positive like, "I wouldn't have such a fantastic life!"
