Please write about a life experience that has influenced your intellectual and personal growth.
Does blogging count as a life experience? I don't know, but I'm still going to continue with this idea. In November 2011, I decided to take up a 30-300-30 challenge for my English class. We basically had to write one blog post everyday for thirty days with a minimum of 300 words, spending 30 minutes on each post. I took this challenge because I like challenges. Challenges are fun, especially when you accomplish them. So, I was writing blog posts everyday for a WHOLE month, and I had a lot of difficulties writing my posts. This was because all the questions offered were a lot about ourselves, and I haven't really written much about myself for assignments, or in general. My first posts were surprisingly hard to write and I spent way more than 30 minutes on them. I didn't know if what I was writing was too personal, and even though my English teacher told me to write spontaneously without worrying about editing and things like that, I couldn't do it. Most importantly, I couldn't do it without worrying about my posts because I've hardly let anyone ever read what I write. I find it awkward. This task was obviously really, really hard for me, and this time, I would have a lot more people reading what I wrote. It wasn't just my teacher. It was a lot of people all over the world.
After around seven blog posts, I realized that I couldn't keep writing like I was. I was taking too long, and I really was overthinking about every little thing! I finally decided to take my teacher's advice. I wrote what came to my mind and it was actually fun. What I wrote after that was really truthful and probably told people more about me than usual. I even learnt to write faster, think faster, and be less awkward about sharing what I wrote.
Other people weren't the only ones who learnt about me. I learnt about myself during this experience. Doing all different types of questions ranging from making a mosquito catcher to falling of my bicycle showed me what was possible if I just spent time thinking about things I didn't think about usually. There were so many things I had learnt from so many different things, and so many funny and not-so-happy memories ( I wrote the funny ones because they're more interesting).
I really got to realize what was important to me and what I wanted to do. While answering all these different questions, I started thinking different from the usual me. Instead of thinking about the next episode of Vampire Diaries or what I was going to do after study hall, I started thinking of the whole world, and more importantly, my place in it. I wanted to make a change, and I still do. I thought about issues that I'd never really thought about before, like providing college-level courses prison inmates. This experience really got me thinking about everything, literally.
During this experience, I changed. Actually, I didn't change. I just became the person I could be, and I had fun through it all.
I remember wondering how people became philosophers. What did you have to do become a philosopher? The answer is that being a philosopher can mean being yourself, freely, because you can't have any restrictions on anything, especially your thoughts. A philosopher exists in all of us.
A philosopher really exists in all of us because during my 30-300-30 challenge experience, I think I unconsciously became one.
(Observation: The word "philosopher" sounds so serious and professional!)
Does blogging count as a life experience? I don't know, but I'm still going to continue with this idea. In November 2011, I decided to take up a 30-300-30 challenge for my English class. We basically had to write one blog post everyday for thirty days with a minimum of 300 words, spending 30 minutes on each post. I took this challenge because I like challenges. Challenges are fun, especially when you accomplish them. So, I was writing blog posts everyday for a WHOLE month, and I had a lot of difficulties writing my posts. This was because all the questions offered were a lot about ourselves, and I haven't really written much about myself for assignments, or in general. My first posts were surprisingly hard to write and I spent way more than 30 minutes on them. I didn't know if what I was writing was too personal, and even though my English teacher told me to write spontaneously without worrying about editing and things like that, I couldn't do it. Most importantly, I couldn't do it without worrying about my posts because I've hardly let anyone ever read what I write. I find it awkward. This task was obviously really, really hard for me, and this time, I would have a lot more people reading what I wrote. It wasn't just my teacher. It was a lot of people all over the world.
After around seven blog posts, I realized that I couldn't keep writing like I was. I was taking too long, and I really was overthinking about every little thing! I finally decided to take my teacher's advice. I wrote what came to my mind and it was actually fun. What I wrote after that was really truthful and probably told people more about me than usual. I even learnt to write faster, think faster, and be less awkward about sharing what I wrote.
Other people weren't the only ones who learnt about me. I learnt about myself during this experience. Doing all different types of questions ranging from making a mosquito catcher to falling of my bicycle showed me what was possible if I just spent time thinking about things I didn't think about usually. There were so many things I had learnt from so many different things, and so many funny and not-so-happy memories ( I wrote the funny ones because they're more interesting).
I really got to realize what was important to me and what I wanted to do. While answering all these different questions, I started thinking different from the usual me. Instead of thinking about the next episode of Vampire Diaries or what I was going to do after study hall, I started thinking of the whole world, and more importantly, my place in it. I wanted to make a change, and I still do. I thought about issues that I'd never really thought about before, like providing college-level courses prison inmates. This experience really got me thinking about everything, literally.
During this experience, I changed. Actually, I didn't change. I just became the person I could be, and I had fun through it all.
I remember wondering how people became philosophers. What did you have to do become a philosopher? The answer is that being a philosopher can mean being yourself, freely, because you can't have any restrictions on anything, especially your thoughts. A philosopher exists in all of us.
A philosopher really exists in all of us because during my 30-300-30 challenge experience, I think I unconsciously became one.
(Observation: The word "philosopher" sounds so serious and professional!)
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