Hey, this is my common app personal statement. Essentially, the prompt was to analyze a significant event in your life. This is one of the more important essays I'm writing for applications so I would appreciate any critique. Please be brutally honest. I appreciate your time, thank you!
I was 16 when I ran away from home. The decision to flee came suddenly. Or maybe not. Maybe I'd planned it all along- subconsciously waiting for the right moment. Either way I needed to get out. That much was clear- absence without leave. I had lived my entire life in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, and I couldn't shake the feeling that my life was passing me by and I wasn't taking full advantage of it. In a few years I would have lived a quarter of my life and so far I had accomplished nothing any real merit. I was running out of time and I blamed my environment. How could I expect to be great when my surroundings were so unremarkable? The white picket fences were closing in on me. That night I packed a bag, waited for my house to fall asleep, and left for the greyhound station.
Freaks, drifters, vagrants- the people who inhabit a Greyhound station at one in the morning are a motley breed, and tonight I was one of them. My bus left at one, a seventeen hour pilgrimage to the heart of the centennial state. I don't know why I chose Colorado. With its vast skies and towering mountains the west seemed great, and I suppose I thought that it would be easy to be great when I was surrounded by greatness.
A strangeness gripped me when I stepped onto the bus, a sense of psychic valediction. In a matter of hours I would be a thousand miles from where I began and it was that easy. I was surprised by how simple the act of fleeing was, and I wondered why more people didn't choose to disappear. The road was paved with possibility. Then, I realized that with the invention of daytime television and other hard drugs, most people can disappear without ever stepping out their front door.
The ride was long and I arrived in Denver at dusk the following day. Denver was no different than any other American Metropolis. Siddhartha found eternal happiness in a river, not a bus station urinal. I needed mountains, canyons, rolling skies- everything the brochures had promised me. The city was no place for a spiritual awakening of this caliber. The next regional bus out of Denver was to Boulder, a small town about 38 minutes outside the city. It was here on the outskirts of Boulder, I spent five days and nothing of any paramount importance occurred. I slept, ate, read and on the seventh day I turned back.
Money was a factor, I think, because I had none left. But I never had a reason to go to Colorado in the first place. You can't outrun yourself on a greyhound bus. I spent six days on the opposite end of the country and nothing changed. I wasn't smarter, stronger, or more courageous for it. I hurt a lot of people by leaving, my mother and father especially, and for nothing. If I want to accomplish something exceptional it's me who has to change, not my surroundings. I don't know what I want to do with my life, let alone where I'll be after college, but I'm prepared to work and better myself so that I make the most of wherever my life leads me. I'm not proud I learned this, but I will never doubt its importance.
I was 16 when I ran away from home. The decision to flee came suddenly. Or maybe not. Maybe I'd planned it all along- subconsciously waiting for the right moment. Either way I needed to get out. That much was clear- absence without leave. I had lived my entire life in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, and I couldn't shake the feeling that my life was passing me by and I wasn't taking full advantage of it. In a few years I would have lived a quarter of my life and so far I had accomplished nothing any real merit. I was running out of time and I blamed my environment. How could I expect to be great when my surroundings were so unremarkable? The white picket fences were closing in on me. That night I packed a bag, waited for my house to fall asleep, and left for the greyhound station.
Freaks, drifters, vagrants- the people who inhabit a Greyhound station at one in the morning are a motley breed, and tonight I was one of them. My bus left at one, a seventeen hour pilgrimage to the heart of the centennial state. I don't know why I chose Colorado. With its vast skies and towering mountains the west seemed great, and I suppose I thought that it would be easy to be great when I was surrounded by greatness.
A strangeness gripped me when I stepped onto the bus, a sense of psychic valediction. In a matter of hours I would be a thousand miles from where I began and it was that easy. I was surprised by how simple the act of fleeing was, and I wondered why more people didn't choose to disappear. The road was paved with possibility. Then, I realized that with the invention of daytime television and other hard drugs, most people can disappear without ever stepping out their front door.
The ride was long and I arrived in Denver at dusk the following day. Denver was no different than any other American Metropolis. Siddhartha found eternal happiness in a river, not a bus station urinal. I needed mountains, canyons, rolling skies- everything the brochures had promised me. The city was no place for a spiritual awakening of this caliber. The next regional bus out of Denver was to Boulder, a small town about 38 minutes outside the city. It was here on the outskirts of Boulder, I spent five days and nothing of any paramount importance occurred. I slept, ate, read and on the seventh day I turned back.
Money was a factor, I think, because I had none left. But I never had a reason to go to Colorado in the first place. You can't outrun yourself on a greyhound bus. I spent six days on the opposite end of the country and nothing changed. I wasn't smarter, stronger, or more courageous for it. I hurt a lot of people by leaving, my mother and father especially, and for nothing. If I want to accomplish something exceptional it's me who has to change, not my surroundings. I don't know what I want to do with my life, let alone where I'll be after college, but I'm prepared to work and better myself so that I make the most of wherever my life leads me. I'm not proud I learned this, but I will never doubt its importance.