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Childhood and Growing up Essay: Titles & Examples

What are the challenges of growing up? This question is thought-provoking and exciting to answer. Each person has their unique experience, and for many the process of growing up is not easy. Some live in poverty, others have complex family relationships. A childhood and growing up essay allows you to discover your new sides and see how well you know yourself.

This article is a writing guide for an essay about growing up. It contains creative essay titles on the topic, together with writing prompts and short essay examples. Get inspired to write your growing up essay with us!

• 📝 Growing up Writing Prompts
• 📚 Growing up Essay Topics
• 📜 Essay Sample #1
• 📜 Essay Sample #2

📝 What Are the Challenges of Growing Up? Essay Prompts

Every child is unique, so that everyone can tell a different childhood story.

What is typical for everyone – the process of growing up is a challenge. Although there’re lots of challenges, it’s also an exciting experience.

Growing up essays usually describe hobbies, relationships with siblings, difficulties with parents, etc. Check our essay ideas below.

What Does It Mean to Grow up?

This is not only about aging or changing your looks. Growing up is a physical and a deep psychological process at the same time. Your picture of the world changes, people come and go, and you change too.

Creating a mind map of your childhood can help you understand what exactly growing up was to you.

A reflective childhood & growing up essay can involve such matters:

• Taking on new responsibilities.
• Learning from mistakes.
• Changes in attitude towards people.
• Childhood dreams and ambitions.
• Childhood beliefs and values.
• Independence, confidence, and self-acceptance.
• Life lessons that shaped one’s personality.
• People who affected the growing up process.

Growing up in a Small Town Essay

Describe the details of being a child in a small town. You can also describe the pluses and minuses of living in a small town. It can be a general overview, but better try to connect it to your life and experience.

In this kind of a growing up essay, you might write about:

• Knowing everyone around.
• Local school.
• The first summer job.
• The places that have always been special.

A comparative essay is a good choice in this case. Discuss why life in small towns is different from life in big cities.

Growing up without a Father Essay

How many children in the United States grow up in single-parent families?

Growing up with a single parent is certainly not the only thing that shapes a kid’s personality. However, it is one of the essential factors, for sure.

• Check the statistics to see how many children grow up with one parent.
• Tell about the mother’s efforts to raise children alone while working.
• Include stories about relatives that were of immense help: siblings, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.
• Describe a person who substitutes father and his role.

Growing up without a Mother Essay

This topic might seem similar to the previous one, but there are several differences.

• Write about the general psychological effects of growing up without a mother.
• Compare the scientific facts with personal experience and conclude.
• Describe how it affects adult life and childhood.
• Write about the typical leisure time with father.

While describing a relationship with a father, describe daily responsibilities and how they influence a child’s life. What challenges do children growing up with a single parent experience?

Growing up Asian in America Essay

Even though the US is multicultural, there are still issues that people of color face. Including children.

Explain how the childhood of an Asian is different from the experience of white Americans. Describe it if you were a part of an Asian community such as a neighborhood or school you attended. Write about your national traditions that you maintained or abandoned.

In your essay on growing up, describe the challenges you overcame. These might include:

• The time you faced racism.
• The stereotypes and misconceptions you faced.
• The choice between your identity and the one imposed by society.
• How has the social position of Asians in the United States changed?

Growing up in Poverty Essay

How many young Americans live in families with incomes below the poverty threshold? There are several risks which growing up in poverty possesses.

You can discuss them in your growing-up-poor essay:

• Malnutrition. Starting from low birth weight, ending with health problems.
• Psychological damage. Being in need as a child might cause emotional and behavioral issues.
• Academic failures. Some poor children have to work and attend school at the same time. This interferes with the proper learning process.

Use growing up in poverty topic for a problem-solution essay. Here you can discuss how to deal with poverty and provide equal opportunities for all children.

Growing up in Two Cultures Essay

Adapting to a new culture is a complicated process. It is a massive challenge for children as they can’t identify themselves.

Here is what you can discuss in your essay on growing up:

• Traditions of your family. They might include cuisine, holidays, religious practices.
• Transcultural adaptation. Describe the change of behavioral patterns, language, or looks.
• Your relationships with peers. Tell about the situations you remember: bad experiences such as bullying or good ones such as interest in your culture.

Write a narrative essay about your vision of what it’s like to be a person who belongs to two cultures.

📚 Essay Titles about Growing Up

And here is your selection of essay topics that you can also use as ideas for a speech or discussion.

You can pick your essay title from this list:

• What country is the best for children to grow up in?
• Should kids and teenagers work during the summer holidays?
• Explain how growing up among American children influences children of migrants.
• What is the most important lesson you learned from your parents?
• Were you more like your father or mother as a child?
• What do you think you needed the most as a child?
• What are the common problems between parents and adolescents?
• Have you ever been a victim or took part in school bullying?
• What are the consequences of growing up too fast?
• Describe a life-changing experience from your childhood.
• How to motivate children to study based on their early childhood performance?
• Does having a pet teach children responsibility?
• Did you have any secrets that you kept from your parents?
• What is it like growing up in a small town with big ambitions?
• What tips could you give your parents if you went back in time?
• What advice would you give yourself if you went back in time?
• How did your race and ethnicity affect your childhood?
• Describe your childhood hobby and the achievements in it.
• How do childhood problems might affect adult life?
• Is it more challenging to grow up as a girl or a boy?
• Who was your role model as you were a child?
• What challenges did you face while growing up, which you think others didn’t?
• What was the biggest mistake you made in your childhood?
• What are the psychological effects of family issues on children?
• How well do you remember your childhood?
• What are the main reasons for suicide among teenagers?
• Describe your best childhood friend and your relationship.
• How does growing up in a low-income family affect one’s attitude to money?
• Why do children lie to their parents?
• What is your brightest childhood memory?
• Why do teenagers tend to be rebellious and sometimes violent?
• What would you change in your childhood if you had a chance?
• Describe the moment when you felt you had grown up.
• How has your music taste changed since you were a kid?
• How to instill tolerance in children from an early age?
• Growing up without a father made me a stronger person.
• What was your dream profession when you were a child?
• What is the most unforgettable present you received as a kid?
• Were you popular in middle and high school?
• What is your earliest childhood memory, and why do you think it’s this one?
• What is the best advice you have received as a child?
• How successful were you academically as a child?
• How to avoid and prevent bullying at school?
• What experience in your family affected you the most and why?
• Did your parents support your dreams and ambitions?
• How can you describe your relationships with your siblings?
• What were the common traits of teenagers of your generation?
• What is the most valuable object that reminds you of childhood?
• Describe your first love and what you felt about it?
• How did your family affect your current values?
• Videogame Addiction and Its Impact on Children.
• Can a single parent provide enough attention and care to their children?
• Who was the closest to you in your family?
• What are the things your parents have done you are grateful for?
• What opportunities do you wish you could have as a kid?
• What were your phobias in childhood or as a teenager?
• What were your strong and weak sides when you were a child?
• What do you want your future family to be like?
• How to detect and prevent child abuse at early stages?
• Why do teenagers try smoking, drugs, or alcohol?

📜 Growing Up Essay Example #1

To make it easier for you, our experts prepared a couple of childhood and growing up essays. Check them below!

Everyone defines growing up in their way. It is more than just physical changes that you notice in the mirror. As for me, growing up means accepting responsibilities, being able to take care of somebody, and becoming independent. I remember the first time my parents asked me to babysit my little sister. Rachel was a silent kid, but I was nervous anyway. I wanted my parents to come home as early as possible because I was afraid of the responsibility. I felt as if they entrusted her life and safety to me, just a teenager. Some weeks later, I discovered that it was not terrifying me anymore. We had fun together; I taught her how to play games and enjoyed our time together. Rachel was also the first person I learned to take care of. I helped my sister with her homework, picked her from school, and gave her advice when she asked for it. The feeling that I do it without waiting for something in return taught me a lot. I changed my attitude towards people, learned how to be kind and generous. Now I am sure that I will be able to nurture my kids in the future. Moving to a college dormitory made me independent. I thought I was an adult fully responsible for myself at high school, but I was wrong. Living alone and being in charge of my life motivated me to change a lot. I learned how to spend time alone, value it and take care of my health. I also started managing my time rationally. Independence doesn’t mean you don’t need other people in your life. It means you can rely on yourself in any case. I can’t say that I am a one hundred percent adult at this stage of my life. I am sure that I grew up helping my parents, my sister, and myself. I changed a lot. But many challenges are waiting for me in the future. Taking up more responsibilities and facing difficulties will help me on my way.

📜 Growing Up Essay Example #2

Growing up asian in america.

Asian-American children are a vulnerable group that needs protection. My experience is an excellent example of the difficulties that Asian-Americans might face in their childhood. As an Asian, I faced bullying at school, low expectations regarding my future career, and troubles with self-identification. High school was a hard time for me. 21.7% of Asians report being bullied at school . The rate is the highest among all the ethnic groups. I didn’t report my own experience as I didn’t want to seem weak. I was bullied because I studied harder than many other students and cared about my grades too much. I am sure that I would have been bullied less if I were a white child. There is nothing wrong with being ambitious regardless of your ethnicity. My family and friends didn’t support my aspiration to become a doctor. They said that no one from my family went to college and that it was too hard to be admitted. It was challenging to keep my motivation without support. Even when they knew I had all the chances to receive financial aid, they just didn’t believe it. It was always hard for me to identify myself. I don’t know if I am like children from China as I have never been there. I was born and raised in the United States. But my motherland does not feel like home too. I don’t look like many of my peers, and my family has a different lifestyle and traditions. I don’t think that I belong to any of the communities. In conclusion, my experience shows how a childhood of an Asian-American kid might look like. I feel that further generations will confront similar challenges facing society and themselves. That is why I want to raise attention to the mentioned problems and change people’s attitudes.

We hope that our article clarified what a growing up essay should look like.

We will be glad to learn about your experience of writing such an essay! Share your thoughts below in the comment section.

This is it for today. Good luck and happy writing!

Growing Up Essay: Guide & Examples [2024]

What does it mean to grow up? Essays on this topic might be entertaining yet challenging to write. Growing up is usually associated with something new and exciting. It’s a period of everything new and unknown.

Now, you’ve been assigned to write a growing up essay. You’re not a kid anymore, but not quite the adult. It would be interesting for your teacher to learn about your childhood memories or read what you think about the experience of growing up.

That’s why:

In this article, we will provide a guide on how to write an essay on growing up. Our team listed some topics to make your writing process more manageable.

• 📍 How to Write It

🏡 About Your Childhood

🧒 about someone else.

• 👧 Growing Up

🔗 References

📍 how to write a growing up essay.

Writing an essay about growing up can seem complicated, but it’s always easier to handle when you have a plan. In this section, we will talk more about how to write an essay on the topic.

• Reflective essays focus on the author’s attitude towards individual experiences. This type is often required during the college admissions process. For instance, one may write about growing up in poverty and how it shaped his character.
• Narrative essays focus on a specific event or sequence of events. For example, you might write about the most memorable trip from your childhood.
• Choose the topic on the familiar subject. It will be easier to reflect on the issue when you have a lot of relevant experience.
• Choose the topic of interest. Write about something that provokes a strong emotional reaction from you.
• Show a unique vision on the topic. Try to approach writing college essays about growing up from a different perspective. When writing a narrative essay, you need to remember that your work should tell a story. Your essay topic about growing up needs to agree with the paper’s length and follow the essay structure. Focus on a specific point in your writing.
• Think about the event in your life that provokes a strong emotional response;
• Write what you have learned from the experience;
• Consider writing about experiences with your friends or relatives. What those events taught you?
• Introduction : Your growing up essay introduction is an opening paragraph of the work. It grabs a reader’s attention and contains a thesis statement.
• Body Paragraphs : The childhood and growing up essay can contain three body paragraphs. In each one, provide an example of an event or situation that supports the general topic.
• Conclusion : In your growing up essay, the conclusion is the final paragraph. It summarizes the main points and brings the paper to an end.
• Revise your draft a couple of days after writing it. That way, you will be able to notice mistakes or typos you missed.
• Try to avoid passive voice . Rewrite the sentences in an active one, if possible.
• Read your essay out loud. If it doesn’t meet the set criteria, keep revising it.

👩‍👦‍👦 Growing Up Essay Topics

You may not know what your essay on growing up should be devoted to. If it’s the case, look at this section. Earlier, we talked about how to write, but here we will tell you what to write about.

See the topics that can navigate an essay about your childhood experience:

• Your family values and how they have been shaping your personality. Engage in reflective writing to show how certain factors of growing up influenced your character. What do you think were the effects of your growing-up period?
• What various roles have you had in your family? How and why did they change? As children grow, the family adjusts accordingly. Remember your roles as a child, adolescent, and young adult . How did they change?
• Your personal changes over the course of growing up. Write an essay describing your personal development . What caused those changes?
• Sudden adulthood. Write a “growing up too fast” essay. Reflect on your feelings and emotions about growing up so suddenly.
• Growing up with siblings . Write an essay about your childhood experience in a house where you weren’t the only child. Remember what it was like growing up with blood brothers and sisters? Or, maybe you have step-siblings? How did it influence you?
• A short memoir . You don’t need to have a dramatic adolescence or an out-of-ordinary story to write about yourself. Share your most exciting stories from childhood.
• A significant event from my childhood.
• Personal experience of parenting styles .
• Describe the events that helped you to learn about life .
• Tell about the time you tried to challenge gender norms.
• Analyze your experience of growing up in another culture and the influence it had on your adult life.
• Most memorable Christmas of my childhood.
• Discuss how the relationships with your parents influenced your growing up and character formation. 
• Describe the experience of self-disclosure in your childhood and the consequences it had.
• How I used to cope with stress at high school.
• Write about your family trips and the effect they had on the relationships within your family.
• Analyze how the relationships with your peers impacted your growing up and adult life.
• How I learned to ride a bicycle .
• Examine how different teaching styles you’ve experienced in childhood influenced your growing up.

In other words, try to focus on something that made your growing up experience memorable and tell about it.

What if you do not feel like talking about your own experience in the essay on growing up? Do not worry. There are many other ways to complete your paper.

What follows next are additional ideas for you:

• Write essays on growing up based on a work of literature or songs . Choose your favorite piece of literature or a song that talks about growing up. Write several paragraphs about the portrayal of the growing up period in music or literature.
• Write essays on growing up with a single parent. Write an essay about growing up without a father or mother. What is it like? What impact can it make on a person’s character? 
• Write about growing up without parents . A childhood spent in an orphanage or with distant relatives can have lasting consequences. Think about the effects it can have on a person’s character.
• Write an essay about growing up in a small town. Think about the advantages and disadvantages of living in a small town . Why do you think it’s good or bad to live in a small town?
• Write about youth growing up fast. Children become adults quite quickly. Discuss the possible reasons for children to grow up faster. 
• What happens to the mentally challenged children when they grow up?
• Examine how Nhuong depicted childhood in the book Water Buffalo Days: Growing Up in Vietnam .
• Discuss the changes digital technology brought into a growing-up process.
• Childhood’s effect on adulthood: the story of John Wayne Gacy .
• Explain how the environment influences the growing up and physical development of a child.
• Describe the relation between difficult childhood and personal development .
• Description of lost childhood in Night by E. Wiesel.
• Analyze the consequences being bullied or being a bully in childhood may have in adult life.
• Frank Conroy’s childhood in his book Stop-Time.
• Explore how childhood development and growing up shown in Born to Learn video .
• Examine the stories about coming of age and infantilism in literature.
• Discuss the peculiarities of growing up in multiracial family.  
• Analyze the authors experience in Country Pride: What I Learned Growing Up in Rural America by Sarah Smarsh .
• Describe the problem of childhood obesity and the ways it influences children’s life.

👧 Growing Up Topics for College Essays

Writing a college essay about growing up essay is a great opportunity to reflect on the challenges and triumphs that made you who you are. Here are some compelling essay prompts and topics that will help you share your unique coming-of-age experience.

• Essay on how growing up has shaped my life. Describe the pivotal moments from your upbringing that have had an impact on your personality and aspirations. You may also reflect on the lessons learned from your family, friends, community, and cultural surroundings. How did these experiences shape your values and worldview?
• What are the effects of growing up in poverty? Essays on this topic can explain how growing up in financially disadvantaged circumstances shapes people’s lives. If it’s something that resonates with you, you can write about it in your college essay. For example, describe the challenges you’ve faced and the experiences that have fostered your resilience. You can also analyze how these circumstances have impacted your values, such as a passion for social justice.
• What are the challenges of growing up? Consider the impact of family dynamics and cultural influences on your personal development. You can also discuss how overcoming these challenges has influenced you as a person and how it made you stronger.
• Is taking risks a necessary part of growing up? An essay on this topic can discuss the potential benefits and drawbacks of taking risks at a young age. Is taking risks an essential part of maturing and gaining independence, or are there other ways to learn? Remember to provide examples to illustrate your point.
• Fear of growing up. For this essay, consider how young people grapple with the challenges of transitioning to adulthood. What anxieties are associated with leaving behind the safety of childhood? Discuss the potential consequences of the fear of embracing adult responsibilities and provide real-life examples.
• Explain how peer influence shapes a person’s identity.
• The challenges of being the oldest sibling.
• How does one’s cultural background determine one’s childhood milestones?
• Social media and the coming-of-age experience.
• How education shapes a person’s future opportunities.
• The impact of childhood experiences on adult development.
• Explore the influence of gender identity on your journey to adulthood.
• The connection between your childhood hobby and adult career choice.
• The importance of self-discovery in the process of growing up.
• Write about the challenges and joys of adolescence.

📝 College Essay about Growing Up: Example

For your inspiration, we came up with a growing-up college essay example. It will provide insights into the content and structure and help you write an outstanding paper.

I have always been captivated by the world of art. Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I have been experimenting with different forms of self-expression, such as painting and sketching.

As a child, I was fortunate to have a supportive family that nurtured my love for art. My mother enrolled me in an art class and was always ready to provide me with supplies. All this helped foster my creativity to the point where I decided to pursue an art education in college.

During my teenage years, I was surrounded by a diverse group of friends who shared my interests. We went to galleries, attended art events, and collaborated on projects. These friendships enriched my artistic perspective even further. They also taught me about the diversity of creativity and expression.

In addition to art, I have various hobbies that help me become better at what I do. In particular, I enjoy reading non-fiction about renowned artists. Aside from traditional art forms, I also experiment with photography and digital design.

My family and friends played a major role in my decision to pursue a career as a creative. Their support and my belief in the power of self-expression will help me contribute to our school and the whole community.

Thank you for reading this article! Hopefully, you found the information written here useful. If so, don’t forget to comment and share this article with your friends.

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The Coming-of-Age Memoirs That Helped Me Write About My Life

Christine s. o'brien on six stories of resilient children.

I grew up in New York City, living in our exclusive Dakota Building apartment with my rageaholic, volatile, movie-producer father and my controlling, brittle, depressed, beauty-queen, Illinois farm-raised, mother. My book, Crave, a Memoir of Food and Longing is about the rigid, blended vegetable, cleansing diet, called the Program, which my mother instigated in our household after her two hospitalized breakdowns and a year in bed. It’s also about the constant hunger my three younger brothers and I endured while being forced to adhere to my mother’s regime of blended salads—and little else—three times a day for our formative years, and about the sense of deprivation that resulted. Later, after I become an adult, the long-term results of that deprivation led to a crisis that threatened everything I loved most. Fortunately, after much anguish and searching, I was able to find balance in my life: balance in my relationship with food and balance in how I look back at my experiences.

While I couldn’t escape the challenges my turbulent family life posed while growing up, I did find relief as I lost myself in my favorite books. For me, books were a doorway into other worlds, places that took me far away from my real life. Reading was a lifeline.

The narrators in each of these coming-of age-memoirs share their experience of hardship but also of triumph as they ultimately overcome the challenges in their lives. Navigating the threshold between childhood and adulthood is a dangerous endeavor, even in the best of times. I find such comfort in reading books like these, they remind me that I am not alone. My hope is that Crave gives my readers this same experience of shared challenge, a reminder of our own resiliency, and hope.

Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy

I read this memoir in my MFA program and felt swallowed whole by the intensity of Grealy’s story, and by her writing style, which invites her readers into her most intimate thoughts. Though her circumstances are very specific—Cancer and disfigurement—they also feel utterly relatable as we follow her journey after she is diagnosed with a potentially terminal cancer at age nine, has a third of her jaw removed, and begins a painful circuitous trek towards healing and self-acceptance. Along the way she falls in love with words, a love she uses to craft her fascinating, compelling, tragic, and ultimately transcendent, story.

A Long Way Gone  by Ishmael Beah

In 1993 Ishmael Beah, age 12, sets off from his village in Sierra Leone with his brother and friends to another town, a day’s walk, to perform in a talent show. The civil war that has been raging on the outskirts of his awareness suddenly becomes real. The theme of innocence lost runs through Beah’s depiction of a world turned upside down as he is forced to become a child soldier. A naturally happy person, Beah’s overriding question—Can we remain happy in the face of tragedy?—gets answered in unexpected ways.

Mississippi Sissy  by Kevin Sessums

Kevin Sessums grows up gay in the South in 1960s, in a conservative family and an equally conservative town. When his friend, mentor, and roommate Frank Hains is murdered, it is Sessums, still only a teenager, who finds the bludgeoned body. Reliving his father’s death, which occurred when he was a boy, Sessums sinks into a feeling of nothingness , a despair he can’t shake. Weeks later, he reads Eudora Welty’s eulogy to Hains which pays tribute to the late columnist’s love of the arts and his “unusual gift for communicating his pleasure in it to the rest of us.” As Sessums reads the last line in Welty’s eulogy over several times, “We are grateful,” the nothingness lifts. He leaves for New York city to begin his own career as an editor, journalist and author.

The Liar’s Club  by Mary Karr

Mary Karr grows up with a psychotic mother and an irresponsible, though charismatic, father. This is a story of two sisters forced to contend with parents who are not only more childlike than parental, they are also dangerously negligent. When Karr’s mother appears in the doorway wielding a glinting butcher’s knife as she and her sister cower under a blanket, Karr and her readers, both, realize that the undercurrent of parental instability that has been running through the story has become one of deadly threat. Karr’s microscopic attention to detail, her wit, her ability to bring a moment to life, had me dog-earing every other page of this gorgeous memoir.

The Glass Castle , by Jeannette Walls

This quintessential difficult childhood memoir, told without a hint of whining, astounded me when I first read it. If anyone has reason to whine, it’s Jeannette Walls, who grew up homeless and at the mercy of parental eccentricity that bled into mental illness. Despite her parents’ flaws and destructive choices, Walls renders her parents in a loving light and invites the reader in as the family journeys through the desert in Southern Arizona and Walls’ childhood stopping in dead end towns in California, Nevada and Virginia. Walls and her siblings eventually make their break, one by one, to New York City, where Walls must ultimately figure out what exactly home means to her.

Infidel  by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

At the beginning of this memoir, Hirsi Ali, age five, is reciting her Somali lineage, counting back 300 years as her grandmother warns her about the dangers of forgetting her lineage, “’Get it right,’ my grandmother warns, shaking a switch at me. ‘The names will make you strong. They are your bloodline. If you honor them they will keep you alive. If you dishonor them you will be forsaken. You will be nothing. You will lead a wretched life and die alone. Do it again.” This grandmother also tells fairy tale-like stories in which the moral is: be smart, be courageous, be resourceful. This is a tale of a dutiful little girl who finds all these qualities inside herself in the midst of hardship and violence, and fulfills her familial destiny as a leader as she finds her voice and power in defending the rights of Muslim women. Hirsi Ali is the heroine of her own journey as I felt, growing up, I was of mine. I appreciated and cheered her on as I experienced her strength in the face of near annihilation, and her ultimate triumph.

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Narrative Essay Example about Growing Up

As I grew up in my small town, I dreaded growing up. I wanted to grow up to figure out who I am as a person and what I will become, but I knew that I would have to face so many hardships that I never wanted to face the reality of growing up.  

My mom had always told me that I was a loquacious and outgoing child, but I became introverted and timid as time had passed. I owe this to my sisters. They were twins, so naturally they did everything together and as a result: I was always the odd one out. It was always them and Neyda. They called each other “sister” and I have always “Neyda” to them. They were stuck to each other’s side, and I was always by myself. This had destroyed my confidence and required me to put my walls up. From an early age, I was forced to do things on my own. I was forced to depend on myself and be strong emotionally. Now in the present day, I have come to terms with having just me. I have realized that it's better not to be dependent on anyone else.  Throughout the years, I have struggled with my confidence, but I have been working on my confidence so hard that I am proud of where I stand today. I have made many relationships along the way that have been an emotional outlet, but I always keep in mind that although great relationships, I will always only truly have myself in the end. This was also shown in my studies growing up.  

I have always been a student who’s been diligent. I’ve always tried my hardest to be the best and I have never been content unless I know I put my blood, sweat and tears in everything I’ve done; out of my siblings, I have been the only one to have that kind of strive. For a time, It was just me and my parents in my household, then it was just my mom and I. It went from me just being a good student, to me being a determined student for a reason. For my mother. The reason for my academic strive is to be able to go to college and give back to my mom for everything she has done for me. I have seen that life has not gven her what she’s worth. I resent that fact that she feels as though it is her fault that our financial situation is stopping her from being an amazing mom. I am studying hard to one day, give back to her. I am studying hard so that one day, she can see parts of the world that she has only dreamed of. In the meantime, I am also trying to help her out financially. I’m picking up jobs around my neighborhood, but when that has become a challenge for me because my older sister has had to move back in. 

My sister had moved out in 2019 with her boyfriend and their kids. She wanted her kids to grow up in a loving home with their father. Although they would often have arguments, they had always stuck together for the kids. I had gone to stay at her house for 2 days because I had begin to grow tired of staying home over quarantine. I began to hear yelling, objects thrown, frightening threats and the tears of my niece and nephew. My sister packed a bag, I grabbed my stuff and that was the last time she had been in that house. Now instead of being able to complete small jobs around my neighborhood, I babysit from 4-11pm on weekdays and all day on weekends. I’ve been having to cope-with my bully moving back in, my mom’s mental health after my parent’s divorce, challenging courses, as well as having to babysit. It has been very burdensome to deal with it all, physically and mentally. Although my life has been very demanding, draining at times, I know that in the end I will become stronger.  

When I was young, and was asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up,” I might’ve answered with “ a veterination,” or “ an astronaut,” now I know that I want to be financially stable. I remember being a young little girl and asking my parents to get me a new toy, and when they responded with a no, I thought they had hated me. Now that I’m older I understand that it was because of our financial situation. It isn’t a matter of wanting to spoil my kids in the future or being rich, it’s a matter of being financially independent and not worrying about the rug being pulled under my feet because I’ve witnessed it when it occurred to my mother and sister.

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Essay Samples on Growing Up

A story from my childhood: a cherished memory.

Childhood is a treasure trove of moments that shape our identities and leave an indelible mark on our lives. Among these memories, there's a story from my childhood that stands out like a beacon of warmth and happiness. It's a story that has been etched...

• Childhood Memories

Growing Up with Divorced Parents: Discussing the Topic of Divorce With Your Children

“Kids need parents not part-time visitors with a checkbook” how important it is to have to a male figure and a woman figure In your childhood? Understanding that your child’s growing stages could be affected because the child's parent doesn't want involvement with them. How...

Growing Up With Divorced Parents: The Impact of Divorce on the Children

Introduction Evidence suggests that children of divorced or separated parents have a higher tendency of being diagnosed with affective disorders such as depression, in comparison to children with parents who are still together. However, the effect size of this finding is weak. The reasons that...

Growing Up Without a Father: How it Has Affeted My Life

Growing up without a father in the family, and being raised by an independent mother has made me grateful for the people in my life, especially my mother. The journey of how a young adolescent’s life was impacted growing up without a father will be...

Lessons about Growing Up in "To Kill A Mockingbird" Novel

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a story about growing up and learning about the real world. Throughout the book, many of the characters, particularly the protagonists, experience the hard lesson of growing up. Some of the characters offer guidance to Jem and...

• To Kill a Mockingbird

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Important Life Lessons in "To Kill a Mockingbird" Novel

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a novel that teaches us about discrimination, both racist, religious and sexist. To some, this may be a disagreeable novel to read in high schools, but in fact, this novel teaches students historical content and the development...

• Childhood Lessons

The Issue of Age Discrimination Called Ageism

The issue of ‘age discrimination is not a new phenomenon. It has been in existence for hundreds of years. In many societies, people of old age have in most cases been vulnerable and treated with hostility. This hostility is still present in the world today...

Growing Up Without A Father: The Role Of A Father In Primary Socialization

In order for the human race to persist, it is essential that they reproduce and nurture new individuals. Every institute of the society has its own function and this task is taken over by the institution of ‘family’. The family, either nuclear or joint holds...

Growing Up Without A Father In Fight Club

Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club is a commentary on struggle for the search for self. The men in the story fight each other in order to assert their masculinity and in turn find a sense of self. The primary focus of the novel is on the...

Growing Up Without A Father And His Role In Childhood Development

There is a riches of indication on Fathers’ positive impact in early childhood development (ECD), as this has been a topic of interest to scientists working in early childhood development globally. Both children and fathers show positive effects when fathers take part in their development;...

• Parent-Child Relationship

The Story Of Max In Freak The Mighty

Max changed in so many ways from the beginning of the book, to the end, but probably the biggest area in growth was intelligently. Max barely even knew how to read. That was until Freak came along and tutored him, in so many categories from...

Neddy's Punishment in The Swimmer

Time passes quicker than it seems most times. Neddy is a character that experiences this as he shifts from pool to pool. Although everything seems nice in his suburban, quaint life, his despair and hopelessness seeps through as he runs away from nothing. In Cheever’s...

• The Swimmer

Personal Input of Tobias Wolff in His Works

Tobias Wolff is a contemporary writer whose work is so understandable, mesmerizing, and a little weird at times, a reader wants to take it apart and find some simple way to describe it (Ansell, 2011). Although sometimes taking place in such foreign locations, Wolff's stories...

• Short Story
• This Boy's Life

The Question of What It Means to Be a Human

The whole question of what it means to be human can de defined in many different ways. The overall idea of humanity is constantly being bounced around between a variety of perspectives, trying to understand what the life we live in means. To me, I...

• Human Nature
• Personal Growth and Development

Coming of Age in Mississippi: Growing Up in Discrimination

Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody, in my honest opinion I thought the book would be boring, I am happy to say that I was wrong. This story about Anne’s life was really insightful and inspiring. Throughout Anne’s memoir I read about all...

• Coming of Age

Reaching the Age of Emotional Maturity

Whilst growing up, we come in contact with numerous people of different orientations, attitudes, actions, and very important ideas. And we wonder why they act how they act or why they say some things they say? Or wow? Due to my upbringing, I would say...

• Human Development

How My Brother Shaped My Personality In Childhood

A majestic playground filled with laughs and memories, and a beautiful curly-headed little girl with locks of gold to match her massive pearl colored house and picture-perfect family. Soon enough to realize that it was all in the distance of my imagination. Growing up with...

• Family Values

Chickamauga By Ambrose Bierce: The Struggles Of Americans During Civil War

Innocence is the one thing we try to hang on to as humans and as Americans. When I say innocence, I also mean ignorance. As most people say, ignorance is bliss. Chickamauga is a story about a boy losing his innocence and his ignorance about...

Consequences Of Growing Up Privileged

Recently, the United States has experienced an expansion in its upper-income societies. From the year 2000 to 2014, the number of adults living in upper-income households increased by 76 percent in observed metropolitan areas. (America’s Shrinking Middle Class) Children of these upper-income families are exposed...

Personal Experience Of Traveling On My Own And Growing Up

I do not come from a big religious or cultural family. Thus I have not had a huge coming of age experience in my lifetime. However in the fall 2017, I had little a bit of a life changing experience. I was offered to go...

• Life Changing Experience

My Experience Of Growing Overnight

Although at age four I thought I could understand the advice given to me, for whatever reason, I didn’t understand my Mother’s words; “Growing up takes time.” In my bright, red painted room, I could see my mother towering over me trying her best to...

Best topics on Growing Up

1. A Story From My Childhood: A Cherished Memory

2. Growing Up with Divorced Parents: Discussing the Topic of Divorce With Your Children

3. Growing Up With Divorced Parents: The Impact of Divorce on the Children

4. Growing Up Without a Father: How it Has Affeted My Life

5. Lessons about Growing Up in “To Kill A Mockingbird” Novel

6. Important Life Lessons in “To Kill a Mockingbird” Novel

7. The Issue of Age Discrimination Called Ageism

8. Growing Up Without A Father: The Role Of A Father In Primary Socialization

9. Growing Up Without A Father In Fight Club

10. Growing Up Without A Father And His Role In Childhood Development

11. The Story Of Max In Freak The Mighty

12. Neddy’s Punishment in The Swimmer

13. Personal Input of Tobias Wolff in His Works

14. The Question of What It Means to Be a Human

15. Coming of Age in Mississippi: Growing Up in Discrimination

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50 great articles and essays about growing up, memoirs of youth, tennis, trigonometry, tornadoes by david foster wallace, losing religion and finding ecstasy in houston by jia tolentino, explicit violence by lidia yuknavitch, on being an only child by geoff dyer, dumb kids' class by mark bowden, the comfort zone by jonathan franzen, countdown by jonathan franzen, us and them by david sedaris, difficult girl by lena dunham, sting-ray afternoons by steve rushin by steve rushin, out west by joe wilkins, my dad tried to kill me with an alligator by harrison scott key, you will never sleep with a woman who looks like that by justin halpern, seventeen by steve edwards, 50 more great memoirs, teenage kicks by guy claxton, a brief history of forever by tavi gevinson, how to bitchface by tavi gevinson, 13, right now by jessica contrera, the siege of fulton avenue by david amsden, life's swell by susan orlean, off diamond head by william finnegan, my high school’s secret fantasy slut league by lena crown, teenage justice by elizabeth weil, one town's war on gay teens by sabrina rubin erdely, the legacy of childhood trauma by junot díaz, shopping-mall time machine by walter kirn, the american male at age ten by susan orlean, raiders of the lost backyard by jim windolf, see also..., 50 great short memoirs, 150 great articles and essays.

Say Everything by Emily Nussbaum

The terrible teens by elizabeth kolbert, what is it about 20-somethings by robin marantz henig, the kids are actually sort of alright by noreen malone, the organization kid by david brooks, age appropriate by jen doll, when are you really an adult by julie beck, they know what boys want by alex morris, friends without benefits by nancy jo sales, why kids sext by hanna rosin, my life as a sex object by jessica valenti, 50 more great articles about sex, a thin line between mother and daughter by jennifer egan, a few words about breasts by nora ephron, school for girls by jasmin aviva sandelson, the year i grew wildly, while men looked on by ashley c. ford, the onset by my ngoc to, 10 more great articles about body image, winning student essays on bullying by various, the terrible boy by tom junod, sexting, shame and suicide by nina burleigh, 10 more great articles about bullying, manhood for amateurs by michael chabon, twentysomething by robin marantz henig.

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I was poor and gay — and my childhood revolved around hiding that

In a personal essay, NBC News correspondent Steven Romo shares how releasing his secrets became his superpower. 

Standing in the airport fidgeting with my plastic, TV reporter earpiece, my camera crew is setting up to interview a traveler when she fills the brief silence by asking, “How does your wife like New York?”

It’s a small conversational crossroads I’ve faced many times. Is it easier for this quick interview to just not correct her that I have a husband instead of a wife? Still, I find myself answering in milliseconds, “My husband is still adjusting, I think. He does miss driving and good Tex-Mex though.”

“Oh, sorry! Husband. My own husband doesn’t even have a driver’s license. Never needed one,” she says, continuing the conversation without much of a pause.

With the camera’s red light on, I ask about her travel delays. Then when we’re finished recording, she says with a slight chuckle, “I actually didn’t fly until I was in my 40s. Grew up dirt poor. Just didn’t want to say that on camera.”

I find myself faced with another coming out.

“You’re not alone there. I actually grew up poor too. My first plane ride was in my 30s, but I had to use about three different credit cards to pay for it. You probably made better choices than I did.”

We laugh a bit more, I thank her for chatting and she disappears out of the sliding glass door.

But this airport encounter, though brief, stuck with me — a reminder that honesty, even about something seemingly inconsequential like marital status or family background, could make me feel so fond of an absolute stranger. It was a sense of simple connection that I’d spent years robbing myself of with constant pretense, trying to not stand out.

Flipping through the scant photos that survived my roach-infested childhood, I can’t help but smile at the greasy-haired kid staring back at me. He had no idea the parts of himself he hated would turn out to be exactly what saved him. What I wanted most back then was to be normal — to fit in. No matter how hard I tried and schemed, I never quite got there. My family and I always seemed to stand out. I was usually one of only a few Latino students in my classes. It was much more than that, though. While other kids were getting dropped off at school by minivans glazed in blue, the jalopies that I arrived in were decorated with rust spots and cracked windows. And when most classmates were wearing crisp, new back-to-school clothes, I was washing my own clothes in the bathroom sink and using a permanent marker to try to resuscitate my faded, formerly black jeans.

Hiding many of these differences was just not possible. But that didn’t keep me from trying — scheming — to hide who I really was. Tall tales about my “wealthy parents” forcing me to wear dirty, ragged clothes to keep me humble didn’t fool classmates for very long. So, I reverted to secrecy and aloofness. Those were some of the earliest things I learned at home — my first language in a way. It’s not something I was explicitly taught, like how to tie my shoes. These were skills I picked up by watching my parents. When someone came to the front door, I learned to freeze in place so the visitor would think no one was home. This was all an effort, to varying degrees of success, to hide what was going on behind that flimsy door.

Trying to explain the conditions of the house seems simple. We had five or six dogs that never went outside. They used the carpet as their bathroom. And the fast food trash piled up over any surface that could hold it. The predictable roach infestation followed. My mom, who ended up passing away while I was in college, had mental health struggles she never truly got help for.  My dad worked as a big rig driver. That left my siblings and me to navigate the chaos on our own.

But then around fifth grade, a new secret I learned about myself made me feel even more alone. Just as many of the other boys started to show interest in girls, I figured out I was gay. I fought it. I tried to will myself straight. I tried to pray myself “normal.” When that didn’t work, I resorted to what felt most natural to me anyway: I decided to hide it.

Projecting this false self into the world every waking moment wasted so much time and energy. And worse, it kept me perpetually at a distance from everyone else. There was always an invisible wall manifested in lies and half-truths. I see that now in these photos showing younger me’s big brown eyes. He was so full of worry and doubt that no kid should have had to carry.

Of course, it wasn’t until I shared these secrets that I was able to wriggle out from under their weight and finally breathe. In high school, I told my best friend about the situation at home. He told me it wasn’t my fault. After I got my first job in news, I told my sister I was gay. She told me she’d already figured that out, and we grew even closer. Coming out freed me. I finally gave myself permission to meet more LGBTQ+ people, and I learned that queer joy is even more powerful than queer sorrow.

Coming out freed me. I finally gave myself permission to meet more LGBTQ+ people, and I learned that queer joy is even more powerful than queer sorrow.

It wasn’t until I stopped trying to blend in that I realized these differences are what gave me the tools I needed to make it. Being an outsider proved to be a gift in disguise. If you’re lucky, feeling isolated can lead to self-reliance, and that helped me navigate my way out of my upbringing. And now covering the news, I get to connect with not only other LGBTQ+ people in their own lived experiences but also others who exist on the margins — the overlooked, the people who feel different. I have the honor of speaking with them in a way others may not be able to. Like interviewing Kate and Trish Varnum, the first same-sex couple to marry in Iowa , and truly understanding their fresh fears about anti-LGBTQ+ legislative proposals targeting their union. Or reporting on a surge of GoFundMe campaigns raising money for same-sex couples’ fertility care , because some insurance companies use definitions that leave them without adequate coverage.

It turns out, all those things I spent so much time and energy resisting and hiding as a kid have given me superpowers as an adult. And the radioactive spider? That turned out to be simple honesty, allowing me to spin webs of connection. Now, with each truth I share, with each story I tell, I can help bridge the divide between the margins and the blinding mainstream.

Sure, it’s not always easy. There were a lot of ups and downs along the way, like when I dropped out of high school, struggled with depression and constantly fought to make ends meet. And the flip side of that self-reliance sometimes manifests in distancing myself from those who love me. That’s something I’m still working on, and in some ways maybe I always will be.

Looking back at the grimy kid in these tattered photos, I see that while he might not have realized it, he was always meant to tell tales. Not ones to hide who he was or how he struggled, but about how he survived. And of finding the extraordinary strength in embracing the beautiful mess of who we truly are.

Steven Romo is a correspondent for NBC News based in New York City. You can follow his reporting and adventures on Instagram , X , TikTok and Facebook . 

EnglishGrammarSoft

Essay about Growing Up

I remember, as a child opening my eyes to this great big world. As a hopeful child, I was very eager to please my parents and teachers. However, as I grew into adulthood and was thrust into the outside world without any knowledge, I became disillusioned about the world around me. I realized as an adult that you have to come to terms with what life is really like. The real world is full of strife and hardship, but also contains many beautiful things. It’s a series of ups and downs, and you have to take it all in stride.

I remember, as a child opening my eyes to this great big world.

I remember, as a child opening my eyes to this great big world. I was so young and so curious about everything around me. I wanted to know what made things the way they were. I wanted to know why there was good in this world and bad in that one. I asked questions about everything and anything that came into my mind: Why does the sun rise? Why does it set? What are stars made of? Where do rainbows come from? Why can’t we fly like birds or swim like fish?

As a hopeful child, I was very eager to please my parents and teachers.

I did whatever they asked me to do. I studied hard at school and got good grades. Every night before going to sleep, I would pray earnestly for them (my parents) and for our family as well as for all the people around us.

Growing up is also a time when we learn how to make decisions on our own without relying on others’ opinions or advice because we want to be independent individuals who can take care of ourselves in any situation that may arise in our lives.

We learn all these lessons by observing what happens around us: what works out well or not so well; whether or not someone gets hurt because of their decision; whether one should listen more carefully next time before deciding which option will work best in order not have any regrets later on down the road!

As I grew into adulthood, was thrust into the outside world , I became disillusioned

The world can be a harsh place for a child, but it will teach them what they need to know so that when they grow up, they can face reality with confidence. As a child, I was taught how to look at the world in a positive light and allow myself opportunities to explore my surroundings. This led me to have an optimistic view of life as an adult. My parents exposed me to many different cultures and areas of study so that I could understand more about humanity and its struggles throughout history.

I realized as an adult that you have to come to terms with what life is really like

As you grow up, you have to come to terms with what life is really like. As an adult, you must make decisions, take responsibility for your actions, make sacrifices and learn from your mistakes. Those are all things that we take for granted as children but they become much more important as adults. When I was a kid, I would jump from one thing to another without any regard for how it might affect my future or the people around me. Now that I am older and wiser I know better than to act rashly or impulsively because life isn’t always perfect and sometimes we don’t get what we want right away so we have to learn how to wait things out until they work out in our favor instead of forcing our way into situations just because we want them now!

The real world is full of strife and hardship, but also contains many beautiful things

The real world is full of strife and hardship, but also contains many beautiful things. It’s difficult to find beauty in the world, but it is possible if you look hard enough. There are many wonderful places in the world that we should all appreciate because they can make us happy.

It’s a series of ups and downs, and you have to take it all in stride.

You have to remember that life is a series of ups and downs, good times and bad. You can’t let the good times blind you to the fact that there will be hard times too—and sometimes they’ll come one after another. Life has a way of putting you through the ringer, but if you’re prepared and ready for whatever comes your way, it won’t knock you down as much as it would someone who wasn’t expecting it at all.

I know it can be hard to grow up, but I’m glad that I did. The world is full of wonderful things and there’s no better time than now to experience them!

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Essays About Personal Growth: Top 5 Examples and 8 Prompts

If you’re writing essays about personal growth, our guide’s article examples and prompts will help stimulate your creative thinking.

Personal growth is looking at ways to improve yourself mentally, socially, spiritually, emotionally or physically. It is a process where we envision a better version of ourselves and strive to realize that ideal self. Personal growth demands the setting of personal goals and ensuring routine progress. The work toward personal development involves a great deal of hard work and discipline as we push our existing skills and strengths to a higher boundary while reducing our underlying weaknesses.  

Read our essay examples and prompts below to help you produce a rich and creative essay about personal growth.

5 Essay Examples About Personal Growth

1. is it really too late to learn new skills by margaret talbot, 2. i’ve completed hundreds of 30-day challenges. here’s what i’ve learned by tara nicholle-nelson, 3. i was a self-help guru. here’s why you shouldn’t listen to people like me by michelle goodman, 4. how to craft a personal development plan that inspires meaningful results by scott jeffrey, 5. personal development and the power of feedback by emily marsh, 10 prompts on essays about personal growth, 1. why is personal growth important, 2. take up a personal growth challenge, 3. your personal growth journey, 4. personal growth among successful people, 5. personal growth for leaders , 6. personal growth at work, 7. best personal growth books, 8. strong motivation for achieving personal growth.

“… [H]e decides to throw himself into acquiring five new skills. (That’s his term, though I started to think of these skills as “accomplishments” in the way that marriageable Jane Austen heroines have them, talents that make a long evening pass more agreeably, that can turn a person into more engaging company, for herself as much as for others.)

Learning new things may not be a cup of tea for those in their middle ages. To get out of established expertise, be looked down on as a novice, and push the brain to work double time may even be a dreary and intimidating process. , But Journalist Tom Vanderbilt, award-winning writers, and Nobel Prize recipients prove that satisfaction is worth it for personal growth and fulfillment. 

“I think of Challenges as self-directed projects to change my behavior or spark some personal growth or development I’m clear that I’d like to have. Sometimes I want a mindset shift or want to make (or break) a habit, or I just have a sort of big project I want to sprint to finish…”

Why are we so drawn to self-imposed challenges? For one, it’s a competition only between you and yourself, giving room for flexibility in the rules you set. It provides structure to your goals, chunks your bigger long-term self-growth goals into gradual and doable daily tasks, provokes a sense of self-accountability, and helps you focus your energy on what matters most. 

“Apparently, I learned, gurus are people too, even gurus lining the self-help shelves of friendly neighborhood bookstores. They aren’t infallible, all-knowing oracles above worrying about their generous muffin top or widening backside. They are businesspeople — businesspeople with books, keynotes, and openings in their consulting practice to peddle”

From abhorring gurus to becoming one and then hating the industry much more — this is the story of a self-help book author who realizes it was herself who needed the most advice for personal growth. But, as she creates a facade of a well-balanced life to establish her credibility, things turn dark, almost costing her life. 

“When entertainment, distraction, and workaholism consume our attention, something doesn’t feel right within us… To have a full and meaningful life requires us to open to more dimensions of ourselves. And a Personal Development Plan can help us do just that.”

Everyone strives for personal growth. But once we jump at it, some wrong ingredients may spoil the sense of fulfillment we expect. The right process involves navigating your potential, creating a larger vision, selecting areas to focus on, setting your schedule, and monitoring your progress. You might also be interested in these essays about motivation .

“Without feedback, we would learn very little about ourselves, in or out of work. The feedback process is like holding a mirror up to yourself; that’s why it can be uncomfortable at times. You have to be prepared to listen to and acknowledge whatever reveals itself.”

Hearing feedback is critical to personal growth. Negative feedback is constructive in losing our bad habits. However, purely positive feedback is non-progressive and dangerous if we only seek to affirm how we regard ourselves.

We can never be perfect. But we can always progress. In your essay, explain why nurturing a growth mindset in life is essential. What long-term benefits can you reap daily from wanting to be a better person? How does it affect the mind, body, and overall wellness? Answer these while citing studies that outline the essence of personal growth.

Take up any challenge you find exciting and feel up to. Then, write about your experience. If successful, offer tips to your readers on how one can prepare their body, mind, and discipline to stick to the goals. If you did not complete the challenge, don’t worry! Your failure can still be a learning experience that contributes to personal growth and is worth writing about. In addition, you can add what areas of yourself you would like to improve on if you ever take up the challenge again. 

Talk about your goals and your daily efforts to reach this goal. It could relate to acing a test, your sports team winning or professional success. Of course, there will be a handful of challenges in any journey toward a goal. What were the obstacles and distractions that tried to keep you off track? Share these with your readers and how you strived or are striving to conquer them.

When you see people already at the height of their careers, you’ll find some continuing to walk out of their comfort zones and reach for the next higher mountain. For this essay, explain the connection between striving for personal growth and success. Then, provide a list of everyday habits among successful people that others could consider adopting.

Leaders must adapt and address problems efficiently and decisively as they move through a fast-changing landscape. Elaborate on how the pursuit of personal growth helps leaders deliver in their enormous role in organizations, companies, and communities.

If you firmly believe that growth at work translates to personal growth, it would be less hard for you to get by at work. But this gets a bit more complex if your feel that your work is no longer satisfying your self-actualization needs and even limiting you. For this prompt, help your readers determine if it’s time to quit their job and continue their journey for personal growth elsewhere. If you want to address companies, offer recommendations enabling their employees to grow and have a vision for themselves. You may also suggest how managers can keep an open line of communication so that personnel can relay their self-development needs.

We all have that book that has given us a new kind of energy that made us feel and believe we can do anything if we put our heart into it. We keep these books close to our hearts, serving as a reminder of other bigger goals ahead of us when the going gets tough. Create a numbered list of the books that have captivated you and helped you realize your potential. Talk about the best quotes that struck the chord and the thought racing in your mind while reading them.

When you tap onto your inherent and external motivation for a much-needed push, it may be easier to turn bad moments into something that helps advance personal development plans. For your essay, explain how motivation can be a bridge to get you to your growth goals.

If you’re still stuck, check out our general resource of essay writing topics .

For help with this topic, read our guide explaining what is persuasive writing ?

Yna Lim is a communications specialist currently focused on policy advocacy. In her eight years of writing, she has been exposed to a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency, web hosting, agriculture, marketing, intellectual property, data privacy and international trade. A former journalist in one of the top business papers in the Philippines, Yna is currently pursuing her master's degree in economics and business.

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Siberia's 'gateway to the underworld' is growing a staggering amount each year

The Batagay megaslump — a 3,250-foot-wide (990 meters) depression in the permafrost in the Russian Far East — is "actively growing" by a massive amount every year, scientists have found.

The "gateway to the underworld," a huge crater in Siberia's permafrost, is growing  by 35 million cubic feet (1 million cubic meters) every year as the frozen ground melts, according to a new study.

The crater, officially known as the Batagay (also spelled Batagaika) crater or megaslump, features a rounded cliff face that was first spotted on satellite images in 1991 after a section of hillside collapsed in the Yana Uplands of northern Yakutia in Russia. This collapse exposed layers of permafrost within the remaining portion of the hillside that have been frozen for up to 650,000 years — the oldest permafrost in Siberia and second oldest in the world.

New research suggests that the Batagay megaslump's cliff face, or headwall, is retreating at a rate of 40 feet (12 meters) per year due to permafrost thaw. The collapsed section of the hillside, which fell to 180 feet (55 m) below the headwall, is also melting rapidly and sinking as a result.

"Rapid permafrost thaw features are widespread and observed to increase in Arctic and sub-Arctic ice-rich permafrost terrain," the research team wrote in a study, published online March 31 in the journal Geomorphology . However, the amount of ice and sediment lost from the Batagay megaslump is "exceptionally high" due to the sheer size of the depression, which stretched 3,250 feet (990 m) wide as of 2023.

Related: Thawing Arctic permafrost could release radioactive, cancer-causing radon

The megaslump measured 2,600 feet (790 m) wide in 2014, meaning it grew 660 feet (200 m) wider in less than 10 years. Researchers already knew it was growing , but this is the first time they have quantified the volume of melt gushing out of the crater. They did so by inspecting satellite images, field measurements and data from laboratory testing on samples from Batagay. 

— Mystery of Siberia's giant exploding craters may finally be solved

— Sea of methane sealed beneath Arctic permafrost could trigger climate feedback loop if it escapes

— 'Black swan' pathogens from ancient permafrost may be getting ready to wake up

The results indicated that a region of ice and sediment equivalent to more than 14 Great Pyramids of Giza has melted off the megaslump since it collapsed. The rate of melting has remained relatively steady over the past decade, occurring mostly along the headwall on the western, southern and southeastern edges of the crater.

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The Batagay megaslump is "still actively growing," the researchers wrote in the study, but there is a limit to how far it can expand. The permafrost remaining inside the crater is only a few feet thick, so "the possibility of further deepening has practically already been exhausted due to the underlying bedrock geology."

Sascha is a U.K.-based trainee staff writer at Live Science. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Southampton in England and a master’s degree in science communication from Imperial College London. Her work has appeared in The Guardian and the health website Zoe. Besides writing, she enjoys playing tennis, bread-making and browsing second-hand shops for hidden gems.

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Rahsaan Patterson Reflects on Kids Incorporated , Coming Out and Achieving Career Longevity (Exclusive)

Patterson opens up to PEOPLE about feeling gratitude for fans' continued support "after 40 years of growing up with me" on the popular children's show

• Rahsaan Patterson starred as The Kid on Kids Incorporated from 1984-1987
• The musician has since released seven albums of his own, scored R&B chart hits and written songs for the likes of Brandy and Tevin Campbell
• As he tours the world and works on new music, he's reflecting on 40 years in the entertainment industry

Decades removed from his time on Kids Incorporated , Rahsaan Patterson is still making an impact on audiences.

The 50-year-old singer-songwriter got his start on the popular kids television show in 1984 and swiftly rose to fame alongside castmates including Fergie and Mario Lopez . Since then, he’s written for acts like Brandy and Tevin Campbell , released seven studio albums of his own and consistently performed live concerts all over the world.

“It's a very humbling thing for me every time I walk out on stage, because I'm not somebody who always expects that the amount of people that show up will,” Patterson tells PEOPLE. “But it's very gratifying to know that people are still so supportive of me and my work, my artistry and what I do after 40 years of growing up with me, essentially.”

The continued success is a direct result of a lifetime of passion, hard work and talent. Growing up in New York City’s Bronx borough, Patterson was surrounded by music both at home and in church choir as a child and got scouted to join Kids Inc. after performing at a talent show in fourth grade. From there, “it was literally an overnight kind of thing,” he says.

“I never had aspirations to [perform professionally] as a kid. I was just somebody who sang,” recalls Patterson. “Coming from a family of musicians and singers, it wasn’t uncommon for us to explore our talents and be supported in that way. But when that phone call came, my whole life changed.”

He only had a “matter of days” to learn the ropes before singing, dancing and acting as The Kid for three whirlwind years on the series, which taught him “literally everything” he still utilizes as an artist today, from working in an ensemble to holding his own on stage. “I don’t think I would have the career I’ve had for so long had I not had that training, been conscientious of what was happening and taking it all in,” notes the entertainer.

Scott Legato/Getty

About a year into his time on Kids Inc. , Patterson started to realize he’d become famous — but that wasn’t fulfilling for very long. “I learned that lesson, and I got it, so everything after that was just about my work,” he explains. “It wasn’t about fame, and it’s never really been about that for me. That was a very valuable lesson I learned early.”

He dove full-force into music after exiting the series in 1987, first singing background vocals on his Kids Inc. castmate Martika’s debut album, before returning for her follow-up project and touring with the pop star. “I really had a bird's-eye view behind the scenes of the record industry,” says Patterson. “It was a valuable lesson for me and gave me everything that I needed to prepare me for my own transition into making records as a solo artist.”

In the ‘90s, Patterson co-wrote multiple smash hits including Brandy’s “Baby” and Campbell’s “Back to the World,” which preceded his own debut self-titled album in 1997. The project spawned an R&B chart hit with the song “Where You Are,” the first of many throughout his career. 

Two more albums later, in the midst of making 2007’s Wines & Spirits , he was confronted with a necessary “inner working process” regarding unprocessed elements of his past as well as his sexuality. 

“I had to do the internal work to go and rescue the boy I had left in New York City before I went to California and this whole new life became what it is,” he says. “I rescued the boy who had been abused, apologized to him and was able to make amends with myself, with God, with the abuser and make everything OK for myself, so that I could continue my life's journey and work.”

In an act of “fairness” to himself and future romantic partners, Patterson — who identifies as gay — then came out to his loved ones. “I come from a family where since we were little, we were able to be ourselves,” he says. "We were free to be ourselves, and that was definitely a factor in my comfortability with myself and my lack of concern about what everybody else thought in the world, because that didn't matter to me.”

He’s since released three more albums, 2008’s The Ultimate Gift , 2011’s Bleuphoria and 2019’s Heroes & Gods , collaborated with artists including Faith Evans and Shanice and performed around the globe. To this day, he keeps in touch with several former Kids Inc. costars and looks back at his time on the show with “gratitude.”

“We established ourselves as friends, of course, when we were younger. But over time, the memories of that period mean so much more than they did even then,” says Patterson. “We're family in a lot of ways, regardless of whether we keep in contact regularly.”

Recently, he found himself reflecting heavily on his Kids Inc. stint after watching the Investigation Discovery docuseries Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV that largely focused on the negative experiences of several former Nickelodeon child stars. Hearing their stories, including allegations of sexual abuse at the hands of adult network staffers, left him feeling disheartened.

Arnold Turner/Getty

“I felt really bad and sorry for the victims. Having survived sexual abuse myself, I know how traumatic it is, and I know that it's a lifelong issue that you deal with,” says Patterson. “It never goes away, and it impacts your entire existence, and you can do all the things to better yourself and keep yourself in alignment with spirit and light and all the things, but the triggers can come from out of nowhere and really affect you.”

Fortunately, Quiet on Set was not representative of Patterson’s time on Kids Inc. He recalls strong “rules and regulations” behind the scenes, including mandatory breaks, and cast members’ parents were present at all times. One change that would’ve helped him through young fame, however, is the implementation of on-set therapists for child actors — an idea that’s been widely discussed following the docuseries.

“There's a lot of pressure to perform, period, and as easily as it may come for some children, there's still a fine line of having to show up as an adult while you're a kid,” says Patterson. “It's not always an easy thing to navigate. So I think having therapists there would surely help.”

Looking forward, the musician plans to continue focusing on projects that fulfill him personally and creatively. He’s currently on tour , with both headlining shows and a set at Chaka Khan ’s Meltdown Festival in London ahead, and working on a forthcoming release.

He’s also finding more ways to expand his repertoire after 40 years in entertainment. “I had picked up a camera back in 2005 and began my journey into another facet of artistry and discovered that there was a passion for it,” says Patterson, who’s “really looking forward to” exploring more photography and creative direction.

With an impressive resume of experience, Patterson’s advice for young entertainers — particularly queer individuals and people of color — is to look inward. “Believe in yourself. Believe in your capability. Trust in your intuition, creatively speaking, spiritually speaking and emotionally speaking,” he says, “and stay strong.”

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Enzo Maresca: Growing up with De Zerbi, playing like Gazza and why he’s ‘worth’ the risk

Chelsea have been given permission by Leicester City to speak to Enzo Maresca about becoming their next head coach and the Italian is expected to soon succeed the departed Mauricio Pochettino at Stamford Bridge.

It is anticipated that the 44-year-old will agree a contract of at least five years, having led Leicester City to the Championship title in his only full season in senior management.

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Maresca’s only managerial experience before taking over at Leicester last summer was a short-lived 14-game spell in charge of Parma and a much more successful season as Manchester City ’s under-23 coach.

Leicester looked at his background as a player, a serial winner at Juventus and Sevilla , and his dedication to becoming one of the most highly rated coaches around, including his treble-winning contribution as Pep Guardiola’s assistant at Manchester City.

Chelsea appear to have done likewise and after only one full season in England are hoping to make him their new coach.

In this article, a version of which was first published last summer, we explain Maresca’s career so far with the help of those who know him.

It is with De Zerbi at AC Milan that Maresca’s football journey began. Maresca was born in Pontecagnano Faiano near Salerno in Italy’s deep south. He joined Milan aged 10 and quickly formed a bond with De Zerbi at their academy.

“We were very young kids,” De Zerbi previously told The Athletic . “You go to school and play football. In the evening it was tough because you were alone there, feeling loneliness. Everything was not as golden as it appears.

“With Enzo, I always had a very good relationship. I was playing as a No 10. He was a No 6 or No 8. He was a great player, better than me.”

It was at Milan that he first met coach Fulvio Fiorin, who over 25 years later would help Maresca launch his coaching career, too.

“He arrived at Milan, where I was coach of the Giovanissimi (under-14s and 15s),” Fiorin told ForzaParma . “He was a rookie, but he was already strong, so much so that I promoted him. He played a few games with us.

“Enzo is a wonderful boy, he has a wonderful family. He is one who values values. He doesn’t show it because he wants to hide behind this apparent tough guy look, but he has a great sensitivity.”

After three years with Milan, he moved to Cagliari for four years. Then, Maresca took the bold step to move to England as an 18-year-old, joining West Bromwich Albion in the Championship. He was due to train with a number of clubs, but West Brom were the first. Manager Denis Smith was determined to sign Maresca.

“The story that we heard, and I don’t know whether it’s true, is that once he’d done that training session we press-ganged him into signing before he could go and train anywhere else,” defender Daryl Burgess says.

“You could see straight away that he had confidence and ability and he was a really likeable guy.”

Striker James Quinn recalls a bright, confident teenager who wasn’t intimidated by his new surroundings and embraced all aspects of playing in England — on and off the pitch.

“I remember when he first walked in,” Quinn says. “We’d never had a player from Italy and then we had two because he came with Mario Bortolazzi (a midfielder who was 15 years older and nearing the end of his career).

“It was a bit of a novelty having a couple of Italian lads walk in. He was very confident. He walked around the dressing room and shook everyone’s hand with a big smile on his face.

“The initial impression I got from him was that he was a confident, happy-go-lucky lad, and throughout his time with us he was really good fun.

“He was a really nice lad but he did have an opinion on the game. It was very early in his career so it was impossible to say whether he would go into coaching or not but, for someone so young, he wasn’t afraid to voice his opinion and have a go at older professionals in a respectful way. And, to be fair to him, he backed it up on the pitch, so they couldn’t really complain.”

Maresca became an instant fan favourite at The Hawthorns. Quinn recalls how behind his pleasant and humble demeanour, there was a player driven to succeed and determined to be a winner.

“I wouldn’t say you looked at him and he was beautiful on the eye technically, but he was a street footballer,” Quinn says.

“He liked to dribble, he could glide past people and he was strong physically. Most of all, he was aggressive and he was a winner. He would be upset if he lost and you don’t always get that with young, foreign players coming into a dressing room.

“He did a lot of what he wanted to do himself on the pitch, to be honest. He was a little bit of a Paul Gascoigne type. He would dribble for long distances, go past players, try to get in the box and he had a trick. He was a handful and he looked older at 19 or 20 than he does now.

“He had a bit of puppy fat and was still growing into his body. He looks really well now, younger than he did when he walked into our dressing room!”

Burgess recalls there was just one aspect of his game that was missing that prevented him from achieving even more as a player.

“If he’d had an extra yard of pace he’d have been a world-beater,” he says. “He just didn’t have that yard of pace that all world-class midfielders seem to have. He’d have been at Juve (who he joined from West Brom in 2000) a lot longer than he was if he had that.

“He always wanted the ball and to do what he wanted to do, which is fine if you have the right players around you.”

Despite his limited English at first, Maresca threw himself into life at Albion, integrating into the squad with relative ease.

“He had a little bit of English when he came into the dressing room but I remember he picked it up very quickly,” Quinn says. “That enabled him to be part of the banter in the dressing room. He was always laughing and smiling. He would play jokes on people and if you played a joke on him he wouldn’t take it seriously.

“He used to be Hughesy’s (Lee Hughes) right-hand man when it came to pranks.

“I remember a night game live on TV and we started our warm-up with a lap of half of the pitch. As we got halfway round, the TV cameras zoomed in on us.

“Hughesy called (mascot) Baggie Bird over to shake his hand. Sky cut straight to them. Enzo knelt down on all fours behind Baggie Bird and as soon as he held his hand out, Hughesy pushed him over Enzo and those two came running giggling like two schoolboys.

“Hughesy used to just use him for all of his little gags. It just showed he wasn’t too full of himself.

“He liked having fun and being part of it. He was very much a typical English footballer, if that makes sense. He fitted really well into the dressing room as if he was a young lad from Birmingham.

“When him and Mario first came in I tried to learn a bit of Italian and I would try to speak it first thing in the morning and he would laugh at me.

“Mario was in his mid-thirties and a lovely bloke who looked after Enzo. Enzo would go around to his house with his wife and the kids, but because he was so mature he settled into English life really quickly.

“He got himself a place and would look after himself and cook for himself. He was a tough kid, as you have to be at that age to move away from your family to a country where you only have a basic grasp of the language.”

“He was very popular,” adds Burgess. “He used to come out with me, sometimes my wife, Andy Hunt and others. He would go out with his friends and then he would turn up wherever we were.

“I remember when he was in the showers, all you would hear was ‘Quando Quando Quando’ (an Italian song made famous in England by celebrity Leicester City fan Engelbert Humperdinck). I think it was the only song he knew.”

As well as the different culture of English football on the pitch, Maresca also embraced the lifestyle off the pitch. He was a hit with local women, especially as his English improved.

“He definitely joined in and he wasn’t shy when he was out either,” Quinn says. “He was a fun-loving lad who enjoyed himself.

“He wasn’t a big drinker. He would sometimes come out and not drink and sometimes he would have the odd one, but he would never drink to the levels we used to in those days. I think he was a little bit surprised at what went on when players went out in the late 90s, but he would still be amongst us, laughing and joking.

“He was a good-looking lad and would get a bit of attention from the ladies and he loved that, but he was always respectful. There weren’t many good-looking Italians rocking around Birmingham in those days, especially young, famous footballers who had an exotic accent.

“So I suppose they were more likely to go and speak to Enzo than me and Hughesy (Lee Hughes).

“He enjoyed it, like any man would, but he never went overboard.

“He threw himself into everything he had to do, whether it was dressing-room banter, training, English lessons, cooking, and he really adapted well.”

Maresca’s stay in west Birmingham only lasted 18 months, but he had a huge impact before he was signed by Italian giants Juventus for £4.3million.

“I was surprised when I was told he was only there for 18 months because it felt a lot longer, such was the impact he made,” admits Quinn.

“I was a bit staggered when his move came about because he had been in and out of the team, so for a club as big as Juventus to come in and pay a lot of money at the time was a bit of a surprise.

“It’s not every day your team-mate gets sold to Juventus, so I always looked out for him and watched him from a distance.

“I’m not surprised he was successful because he had all the attributes, not just physically or technically, but with his mentality, too, and it doesn’t surprise me that he’s gone on to be a good coach. I can imagine what he would be like around players.”

After his time at West Brom, Maresca won a Serie A title with Juventus and spent four years there — interspersed with loan spells at Bologna and Piacenza — before moving to Fiorentina.

“I always say that with Juventus, I learned to win,” Maresca told the Manchester City website. “With Juventus, first of all, you have to win, so working there with them you understand how important it is.”

He did most of his winning as a player at Sevilla, lifting two UEFA Cups, a UEFA Super Cup, and a Copa del Rey . He also met his wife, Maria Jesus Pariente, who is from Seville, and had a son — Paolo — while in Spain.

After one year with Olympiakos in Greece, he returned to Spain with Malaga to play under Manuel Pellegrini. Pellegrini first sowed the seed of Maresca becoming a coach when it was time to hang up his boots.

“I’ve always said that in terms of experience about football, Manuel is, for me, like a father,” Maresca says. “Also, Manuel was both the coach and the person who convinced me to try to be a coach myself.

“I was still working as a player with him at Malaga and one day, during a chat with him, he said to me: ‘You have to try to become a coach because I think you can become a good coach’.

“It was just a chat but, from that day onwards, I started to think that maybe I did have a future as a coach. That’s how it started.”

After Malaga, Maresca enjoyed spells with Sampdoria, Palermo and, finally, Hellas Verona before moving into coaching, having studied at Coverciano — the Italian FA’s university of football.

There he wrote a thesis entitled “Football and Chess”, in which he compared his coaching and tactical philosophy to that of the board game.

“There are a lot of similarities,” he says. “The most important is positional play and strategy. For a coach, it’s important to have the mentality of a chess player: develop a plan, study counter moves, choose the arrangement of the pieces.”

He linked up again with Fiorin at Ascoli and was an assistant at Sevilla before joining Pellegrini again at West Ham United , where his coaching style had a big impact on the players, as former midfielder Robert Snodgrass says.

“You could tell from the off that he was good – like really good,” he says. “Everything about him made you think, ‘This guy’s a proper winner’.

“Up until then, in my career, I’d been used to the man-management style, coaches who got the best out of you by motivating — Steve Bruce, Gordon Strachan, Sam Allardyce. Enzo introduced me to the idea of being managed tactically, of a coach getting the best out of you by educating you and teaching you.

“The Spanish are massive on positional play. It’s what they seem to think about most and he was like that. The things you see at City, three at the back, wing-backs who push up or go inverted, a really aggressive approach to pressing – Enzo was big on all of that and it wasn’t a surprise to see him go in with Guardiola.”

Pellegrini gave Maresca the responsibility to conduct tactical sessions and Snodgrass said it was revelatory.

“I’d always thought of pressing as pressing other players, but he got my head into how to press space and how to make a difference that way,” he says. “Attacks started with the centre-backs. You played high up and got bodies in the opponent’s half and you tried to win the ball high up.

“What you got was wing-backs going high and creating space for the wingers. Then your two eights would make big forward runs to give you something to aim at.

“You had forwards who were so high they’d be offside, but then they’d come back in the second phase and give you a threat. His speaking about it was an education for me. He made me a better player, definitely, and I still keep in touch with him now.”

He continued his coaching education with Manchester City, firstly as the head coach of the under-23s, leading them to their first-ever Premier League 2 title, and as assistant to Guardiola last season in the historic treble-winning campaign — after a brief spell as a manager at Parma.

What to expect from Maresca's Leicester side on the pitch

Talking about how he expected Maresca to set things up at Leicester, which might also be applicable at Chelsea, Snodgrass said: “If he’s like he was before, you’ll see a lot of pressure on the defenders. He’ll want players there who can play in any position across a back four or five. He’ll want defenders who you can shift into the centre of midfield if he needs them to, a bit like John Stones .

“They’ll probably be super aggressive, trying to make sure that when the opponent gets the ball, he doesn’t have time to look at the picture in front of him. He can only look down and play a pass.

“He honestly did open me up to a different way of thinking, especially about how to take up the right positions. His English is great and the way he interacts is excellent. You can tell he was a terrific player in his time, too. Obviously, he did some of the coaching at West Ham, but his personal touch was the thing, the detail he gave you and the way he helped the lads individually. He’s one guy I look at and think, ‘I really learned a hell of a lot from you’.

“One of the things I noticed was how good he was at doing that with lads who weren’t in the team. He kept them fresh and made them feel like they were involved and I think there’s a bit of a higher power in that, the idea that ‘this isn’t about me, it’s about all of us’. That is so obvious at City, that everyone’s made to think like that.

“He’s from the same mould as Guardiola, 100 per cent. I reckoned when he left Parma that Guardiola would want him back at City. He’s a top operator and a job like this (Leicester) was always going to happen for him.”

He only got 14 games to imprint his philosophy at Parma, where there was the upheaval of 15 new players arriving following relegation from Serie A.

“In my opinion, this (Leicester job) is one where if it doesn’t work straight away and you give up on it quickly, like clubs sometimes do, you’ll regret not sticking with him. Maybe he won’t need time. Maybe he’ll be that good, but if he needs it then you’ve got to give him it,” says Snodgrass. “He’s worth it.”

(Top photos: Getty Images)

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Child Poverty — Growing Up in Poverty Made Me Who I Am

Growing Up in Poverty Made Me Who I Am

• Categories: Child Poverty Life Lesson

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Words: 439 |

Published: Apr 29, 2022

Words: 439 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Works Cited:

• Abraham, C. (2007). Planning for Behaviour Change: A User‐Friendly Handbook for Health Professionals. Elsevier.
• Bandura, A. (2000). Health promotion from the perspective of social cognitive theory. Psychology & Health, 15(2), 255-268.
• Carroll, J. S., Willoughby, T., Badger, S., Nelson, L. J., Madsen, S. D., & Barry, C. M. (1993). So near and yet so far: The impact of varying marital horizons on emerging adulthood. Journal of Adolescent Research, 8(2), 164-178.
• Garzón, A., & Caro, I. (2013). Positive health psychology: A new approach to health. The European Health Psychologist, 15(3), 98-106.
• Kawachi, I. (1999). Social inequalities in health: what will the next decade bring? International Journal of Epidemiology, 28(2), 361-364.
• Kennedy, B. P., & Kawachi, I. (1999). Proximate causes of socioeconomic status and health: A framework for understanding the role of stress and psychological factors. Social Science & Medicine, 49(10), 1391-1404.
• Michie, S. (2007). Causes and management of stress at work. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 64(9), 643-643.
• Michie, S., & Abraham, C. (2004). Interventions to change health behaviours: evidence-based or evidence-inspired? Psychology & Health, 19(1), 29-49.
• Murray, M., Bradshaw, P., & Holmes, J. (2004). The social nature of mental illness. Palgrave Macmillan.
• World Health Organization. (1995). Declaration of Alma-Ata. International Conference on Primary Health Care, Alma-Ata, USSR, 6-12 September, 1978. World Health Organization.

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Home | Life | Personality | All About Me

All About Me: My Story of Growing Up

• Updated March 18, 2022
• Pages 3 (689 words)
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Every year at some point a teacher asks you to describe a role model in your life. Coming up with an answer used to be easy for me, but growing up tends to change your perspective. I could lie to you and tell you I’ve had strong relationships in my life, however, an untruthful story is never fun to tell. I’m not who I used to be five years ago. Then again, who is? I have always been well cared for by my terrific family, who has always given me everything I’ve needed. However, I don’t have a role model nor people who have changed my life. I do have experiences that have molded me into who I am, made me stronger, and guided me to who I want to be. Everyone has different stories along with their own challenges. But, for as long as I can remember, I’ve had two things I can count on to help me through mine.

My dog was the runt of the litter. She was going to be taken to the pound, but I convinced my parents to let us have her. Ever since that day she has been my best friend. You’ll hear stories about a dog and human bond, but I can tell you there isn’t anything like the one I have with Molly. She’s like a shadow that you can’t shake but never want to, always at my heels. I know she is a dog, but she has always made me feel safe. Molly can make the darkness of the bedroom, to the light of a public place feel safer. Whenever I’ve fallen too far into thought over something, I can always count on her to roll in my hair or spin in circles, allowing me to come back to the real world. Molly may just be a dog, but I have always been able to count on her.

Trusting people has been hard for me for a while now. Although, I can always count on my past self. Meaning, I don’t know what the future entails, and the present is always changing. So what I can count on is the fact that the past can’t change, you can only learn from it. Learning from my mistakes, and the mistakes of those who have crossed my path shows me who I want to be. I can put up a good front, but fitting in has never been my strong suit. Throughout each day, my hair tends to be my safety net. When I feel bold enough to push my limits I have an updo, and when I wear my hair down it acts as a safety barrier. I’ll admit I’ve had some pretty risky colors, and through them I learned what fits me. All from your past self, you can learn anything from the people you want to surround yourself with, to people you want to stay away from, to even something as simple as hair colors that need avoiding. Learning from the past helps us to prepare for the future.

While learning a lot throughout my teenage years, as they’re coming to an end I’m hoping to find the place I can feel comfortable in my own skin. I believe that the Military is the place I will find my sense of purpose. The goal of the Armed Forces is to train you to serve and protect our country. I know that I can achieve who I want to become by enlisting and learning about myself altogether.

Overcoming your self-doubts is one of the hardest battles anyone will have to face. Although, having certain things you can count on is what matters. In the time of the past and present, I’ve had Molly and my past self. Looking towards the future, I’m hoping to have the Military in my life. Having this stability will provide me with confidence and dedication for my further endeavors. My experiences make me who I am, while my future shows me who I want to be.

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