Personal Identification Report
As an eight-year-old pipsqueak who was regularly pitted against the twelve-year-old Goliaths of Albuquerque's 12U tennis division, losing 0-6, 0-6 became a natural part of life, and I hated it. In fact, my tournament to-do list consisted of a dreadfully long car trip, suffering defeat upon defeat to another unnamed middle-school giant, and then drowning myself in a sea of tears while my dad lectured me about "unforced errors" on the trip home. As a result,
I started to run away from tennis. I performed rain dances on tournament weekends and engaged in games of perpetual "hide-and-go-seek tag" (which consisted of my dad struggling to shove me into a car) as literal attempts to flee practice. I would do anything to escape the wounds of loss and the stings …show more content…
of failure. However, as I learned later, a painless lifestyle doesn't come without painful consequences.
When my dad was suddenly diagnosed with lung cancer two years later, I was devastated, but part of me still breathed a sigh of relief; his rigorous tennis boot camp had finally come to an end. Although I continued to play for recreation, I quickly gave up on tennis competitively. I no longer felt the need to challenge myself or risk failure, and for six years, my tennis skills were confined to a state of stagnant growth, while my peers continued to shower me with praise for my flawless report card. However, when my family moved away from the desert hills of Albuquerque to the buzzing city lights of Austin, I was brutally awakened from my carefree fantasy. In an unfamiliar world, every single one of my peers seemed to possess the brilliance of Einstein or the genius of Leonardo da Vinci. Once again, I was merely a guppy in a sea of middle-school prodigies, except this time, I was trapped inside a teenage body.
Not familiar with facing hardship, I started to doubt my intellect. Slowly, I fell into the depths of depression, and my self-confidence withered at the hands of a growing inferiority complex. But then, at arguably the bleakest period of my life, an unlikely savior came to my rescue: competitive tennis.
Either out of nostalgia or frustration, I decided to pick up the racket once again, and in my debut match at a Texas tournament, I was destroyed 0-6, 0-6 in the first round.
Deja vu. Similarly, over the course of the next few months, I suffered many losses, but with each defeat, I was able to identify a weakness in my game. Gradually patching the chinks in my "tennis armor", I eventually fought up the rankings to win a tournament of my own and earned the title of
"superchamp", a junior qualified for state-level tournaments. As a major personal victory, my promotion significantly boosted my confidence and helped me to escape the ravine of self-doubt that had trapped me upon my arrival in
Austin. As a result, I started to stretch out of my comfort zone academically, and applying the perseverance of tennis to school, I was able to overcome the pressures of failure and experience a period of unprecedented growth in school and in life.
When all seemed hopeless, tennis, my childhood enemy, acted as my lifeline and gave me direction. Though I was constantly buried under the stresses of academics and my family situation, tennis gave me a way to relieve myself of the accumulating pressures of life. In the 'dark ages' of eighth grade, tennis was the one thing that I could be proud of, and, to this day, I still relish the feeling of blasting away my troubles with a spectacular
forehand groundstroke. Through the sport, I learned the importance of perseverance and hard work, but most of all, I learned that failure does not mark the beginning of a dead end but the start of a new beginning.
I started to run away from tennis. I performed rain dances on tournament weekends and engaged in games of perpetual "hide-and-go-seek tag" (which consisted of my dad struggling to shove me into a car) as literal attempts to flee practice. I would do anything to escape the wounds of loss and the stings …show more content…
of failure. However, as I learned later, a painless lifestyle doesn't come without painful consequences.
When my dad was suddenly diagnosed with lung cancer two years later, I was devastated, but part of me still breathed a sigh of relief; his rigorous tennis boot camp had finally come to an end. Although I continued to play for recreation, I quickly gave up on tennis competitively. I no longer felt the need to challenge myself or risk failure, and for six years, my tennis skills were confined to a state of stagnant growth, while my peers continued to shower me with praise for my flawless report card. However, when my family moved away from the desert hills of Albuquerque to the buzzing city lights of Austin, I was brutally awakened from my carefree fantasy. In an unfamiliar world, every single one of my peers seemed to possess the brilliance of Einstein or the genius of Leonardo da Vinci. Once again, I was merely a guppy in a sea of middle-school prodigies, except this time, I was trapped inside a teenage body.
Not familiar with facing hardship, I started to doubt my intellect. Slowly, I fell into the depths of depression, and my self-confidence withered at the hands of a growing inferiority complex. But then, at arguably the bleakest period of my life, an unlikely savior came to my rescue: competitive tennis.
Either out of nostalgia or frustration, I decided to pick up the racket once again, and in my debut match at a Texas tournament, I was destroyed 0-6, 0-6 in the first round.
Deja vu. Similarly, over the course of the next few months, I suffered many losses, but with each defeat, I was able to identify a weakness in my game. Gradually patching the chinks in my "tennis armor", I eventually fought up the rankings to win a tournament of my own and earned the title of
"superchamp", a junior qualified for state-level tournaments. As a major personal victory, my promotion significantly boosted my confidence and helped me to escape the ravine of self-doubt that had trapped me upon my arrival in
Austin. As a result, I started to stretch out of my comfort zone academically, and applying the perseverance of tennis to school, I was able to overcome the pressures of failure and experience a period of unprecedented growth in school and in life.
When all seemed hopeless, tennis, my childhood enemy, acted as my lifeline and gave me direction. Though I was constantly buried under the stresses of academics and my family situation, tennis gave me a way to relieve myself of the accumulating pressures of life. In the 'dark ages' of eighth grade, tennis was the one thing that I could be proud of, and, to this day, I still relish the feeling of blasting away my troubles with a spectacular
forehand groundstroke. Through the sport, I learned the importance of perseverance and hard work, but most of all, I learned that failure does not mark the beginning of a dead end but the start of a new beginning.