How I Commit to Submit and Resist the urge to Quit by Cassidy

How I Commit to Submit and Resist the urge to Quit by Cassidy - March 2015 Scholarship Essay

I sit here now, pondering my future and wondering what to write for this scholarship. I reflect upon this course of actions to myself. “Why are you sitting here on a warm and sunny evening, writing an essay, when you could be lounging around, reading, or playing a game”? I rebuke this self-criticism and explain to myself for the hundredth time this month that I chose this course of action because I have the chance to make a difference in my own life. That this course of action gives me the chance to support my own future in a field that I genuinely want to understand and better myself in. A possibility to reach higher education without feeling like a parasite, endlessly sucking life out of the wallets of people I love and care for. That my life has worth that can be supported by my own merits.

I’m once more set at ease, content with this line of reasoning; that I write because I strive for a better tomorrow. Setting my eyes once more to the question that this essay pertains to, I recognize that these internal deliberations of self-worth, felt but a moment ago, relates strongly with what I must write about. Leadership and success.

That is, whether leadership skills are required for success in college. To spoil the conclusion to my line of reasoning, I will begin with the thesis. No, leadership skills are not a requirement to succeed. Of course, at a glance this conclusion appears to not relate much with the prior anecdote at all. But I would say it helps to make clear the distinction between college “success” and leadership.

In my prior reflection, I noted that the reason I took the time to write this essay, and many others for that matter, was to make the attainment of a college degree more realistic financially. To achieve my dream and attempt to better myself through academia. That is my goal and what I hope to accomplish in college. By definition, to succeed is to accomplish what is attempted or intended. For this reason college success, to me, is a matter of acquiring the funds to pay for an education and fulfilling necessary classwork in order to validate the degree.

Whereas, to lead is to command and inspire others to accomplish tasks and goals. Indeed useful as a social skills and influence; a skill not to be scoffed at, with aspects that can be beneficial to every kind of lifestyle, skill, and trade. To have influence over another is a profound and powerful trait. Leadership, at its core, is a fundamental condition to massive changes in the world. Many great ideas cannot come into fruition without the guidance of one charismatic enough; however that is not in and of itself necessary to succeed at college and only perhaps an element that can help one through college.

To bring both defining points of success and leadership back to my purpose for sitting here now, I do not write to better my skills as a leader. I write to better myself as a person. The reason I go to college is not to get an edge or influence over others; it is, at the foundation, to achieve amelioration. That is what I mean when I say leadership is not a requirement for college success. Rather, college success is whatever the student wants it to be, because I am free to choose whether or not I want to go to college and what for. I am free to go outside and lounge in the evening sun or sit inside and write. And I made my choice. I write for my future; my college success. And regardless of any innate leadership skills I have or don’t have it is my freedom to choose, my determination to succeed, and my desire to learn which pushes me to my goals. That is why I intend to succeed in college. So unless the definition of leadership is broadened to mean “one’s ability to command oneself”, I cannot conclude that leadership skills are a necessity. Rather, At the heart of college and perhaps most individual problems, success can only be achieved through a self-realization; finding what one wants to achieve, followed by a triumph over the endeavors pertaining to the individual’s self-realized goal. For me, success is to better myself and learn through my own diligence and prowess. It is to attain a goal with the aid of others, rather than the commandment, of others.