‘This I Believe’

For the past several years, Stockbridge High School and the Stockbridge Friends of the Library have collaborated to offer an essay-writing contest in order to engage Stockbridge High School students in an exploration of the core beliefs that guide their daily lives. Held twice a year, the contest is based on NPR’s four-year-running and now defunct “This I Believe” program.

Winners of the semiannual “This I Believe” contest are in, and there is a third place tie between Xavier Curtis and Isabella Eccleton. The second-place winner is Clare Beutler. The first-place winner would like to remain anonymous, but we are happy to still be able to publish their essay.

SCN is pleased to publish the first-place winner’s essay below as SCN’s monthly student-written column. Be sure to check out April’s issue for the third-place winning essays, and last month’s issue for the second-place winning essay.

First-place winning essay

I’m frozen; I can’t move. I stare at the floor trying to block out the yelling. My dad was mad because the dog had an accident in the house. This triggered him and I’m assuming he felt like he needed to blame it on someone else, which he did and that was me and my brother. I was confused and upset but mostly I just didn’t know what to feel. He had never lost his temper like this before and it scared me. I’m leaning against my door frame and I feel a pit in my stomach and suddenly I feel it all, mostly the anger. I bottle it up and look at my brother across the room, his eyes fixed at the floor. After my Father leaves the room I run to my brother, eyes filled with tears and snot running down my nose asking him to call my sister to come pick us up, struggling to finish the sentence. We quietly pack our bags and sit in silence until my sister arrives and we hear a knock on the door. I felt uneasy walking down the stairs, I saw my dad confused and my sister calmly but snappily explaining it to him why we were leaving as we were walking out the door. His face grew red then I swear I saw steam coming out of his ears, but he was holding back, for the most part, but still slipping a few snarky remarks. Then he said something about my mom and I let my emotions get a hold of me and I just let it go, I yelled and screamed how I felt about him, and I wasn’t holding back. It wasn’t well put together or thought out at all but I knew that I couldn’t stop after I started,  I just needed to get it all out. I had never done this before, I had never bottled up my emotions until it exploded letting them all out. Just like him.

I get into the car sobbing talking things out with my sister and brother, calming me down a bit. The rest of the car ride home was silent besides a few words from my sister and some short worded answers. On the other hand my mind was the opposite of silent; I couldn’t stop thinking about what happened and how he got so mad over such a small thing.

I was a very fortunate child and didn’t have many bad things happen to me or at least none that I could remember so I never really knew how to handle my emotions in these situations. It was stressful and overwhelming and I didnt know how to feel or act. I now saw my dad differently and that freaked me out. Looking back at past memories with my dad noticing how I viewed them differently and I can now tell that his anger was a regular thing and I had just blown it off. To be fair I was young and denied the fact that my fun, loveable dad wasn’t all that perfect and in fact had some pretty big flaws.

Looking back at this memory I realize that 9 year old me needed that, I needed to let all of my emotions burst out and I needed to see my dad for who he really was. If it wasn’t for this, I would probably have a really unhealthy and toxic relationship with my father and would’ve not learned how to handle my emotions or how to stand up for myself. To this I would give the advice to learn from your past, not to run from it or ignore it but to accept it and to grow from it and be a better person because of it.

The belief of learning from your past is one of the most important and teaches you many life lessons. This belief I think would be beneficial to many because it teaches you to accept your past and to grow from it. Also, It can teach you to find the solution to any problem or situation within yourself and or your past. You can do this by looking back and trying to find something similar to the predicament you are in and then you can try and avoid the situation in general with the knowledge you have already.

This is a very common habit yet many people don’t know they can use it for important life decisions. Learning from your past can mean something as normal as not putting a fork into the toaster because last time it shocked you. If this is such a normal habit to do then why don’t people take advantage of this for their benefit. Doing this can not only prevent you from making a horrible decision or going into something blindly but could also change your life for the better.

If many people started doing this, society would be very productive and wouldn’t make as many mistakes. This is because everyone would learn their lesson the first time around and that would prevent future mistakes. Many people struggle with similar problems and don’t even realize it, but what if you did and you mastered how to handle those situations. You would be able to go farther in life and reach those goals you have always wanted to reach. This is why I believe in learning from your past.