Why Do I Love A Book?

A library and a book are very different things. I love books. However, I hate libraries. This may seem contradictory. How can someone love a book so much but hate its natural habitat? The answer lies within a bittersweet story of seeing my future, not so long ago, that tells the story of my education. It was January of my freshman year, and my classmates and I were brought to a library to be introduced to the pieces of paper that would follow us forever: our academic transcripts. My classmates joked about their anticipated results. “Bottom 15% or bust!”- a phrase that I heard that made me chuckle, albeit with an apprehensive nervousness. We made our way through the library’s seemingly out of place furniture and the nervous sweat began to make
Surely no numbers told me the coming story of my educational venture, but now I was forced to evaluate questions concerning the very future that yet to exist but I felt every necessity to safeguard. And, in that instant, I felt the entire weight of the world reintroduce itself. I had just ridden a totalizing emotional rollercoaster in a matter of minutes, finding myself even more of a wreck than I was at the beginning in those dreaded crème chairs. Alas, libraries today give me anxiety. But this instance of evaluation, of shaking hands and impatient eyes, is more than a story about an eager freshman and his tendency to overthink. It is the story of my educational experience. For all of my life, I have been forced to ask the same question: “Who am I, and where am I going?” My education has been a time of challenge, forcing me to question myself, my unique conditions, and if my aspirations were whimsical acts of wading the water or truly creating the foundation to change my life. But beyond the library, with my life, I can say I have seen the fortunes of amazing, life-changing educational and personal experiences, never without the everlasting theme of struggle that made them
In fact, because of my realization, and my responses to actualize change, I have had some of the greatest experiences of my life. Although middle school coursed by without even a second thought, high school has opened up unprecedented opportunities. When I set to cultivate my passions actively rather than allowing them to fade in the sea of doubt, I was introduced to new friends and communities that have since altered my life. A profound example of this is debate, which I joined simply on impulse my freshman year. I began to go to the debate room every day after school, and would talk with my older, more seasoned friends about everything from prom to Marx. They taught me so much about myself and what I would come to love. They showed me what it meant to make a commitment to a lifelong experience of learning. It was all a chance to eliminate the past and create a lifelong commitment to learning, educating, and growing. Debate would grow into an ever more core interest as I began to advance in it, attending the National Speech and Debate Tournament the July after my Freshman year. At the time, I felt like I had made it. A kid that over a year went from sitting at home lazily on the computer to debating at a national tournament in Utah – a true story of progress. But what Salt Lake City taught me was to never stop striving for more. It made me want to keep learning and thriving. And today, that’s exactly what I’m trying to do. Last