Approaching Life's Challenges As Hurdles by Jaime

Approaching Life's Challenges As Hurdles by Jaime - December 2013 Scholarship Essay

Realizing who we are and what we want to do with our lives is one of the hardest processes we will go through as humans on earth. Through a lifetime of learning with lessons from school, family, mistakes, and unforgettable memories, we comprehend and remember the events in our lives which help us become the people we are today. A big part of this realization process is figured out during our high school and college years. We gain valuable knowledge which helps us with this process not only by being active inside the classroom, but also by being active outside the classroom. From my experience as a Track & Field athlete for the past three years, I can agree with the statement that you do gain knowledge outside of the classroom by being active in some sort of extracurricular activity.

Becoming a successful hurdler on my track team has done amazing wonders for me throughout my high school career academically and physically. However, achieving academic and athletic success is nowhere close to the personal impact which Track & Field has had on my life. This sport impacted me in a broader sense then just being a part of an extracurricular activity after school. Track & Field became a huge part of my process in figuring out who I am and what I want to do with my life. I realized that Track & Field helped me figure out who I was as a person at possibly the most unexpected time imaginable; while I was cooking. I remember coming home from track practice one evening and finding a note on the refrigerator that was left by my mother. It said:

“The Reading Eagle called me into work without notice telling me I needed to work the third shift. I know it has been a while since you last cooked up a dinner by yourself, but I know you are capable of cooking one up just like you did when you were in middle school. There’s a lot of stuff in the fridge to cook, so go crazy!”

Seeing this note left by my mother brought back so many memories of when I cooked dinner for myself every night six years ago. When I was in sixth grade, my father left my family and divorced my mother, forcing my mom to apply for a second job so she could be able to afford to send me to private school. For my mother to be able to work her second job, she had to work the third shift which meant she had no time to cook dinner after coming home from her first job. Before my mom would leave, she gave me a list of ingredients of what to make and how to cook for myself. I learned at a very young age the value of responsibility and that cooking at first would be a big challenge, but it was a challenge I overcame and eventually a new hobby I was very good at.

I realized that cooking on the spot was no different from the hurdle I conquered with cooking every day at age twelve. Cooking that evening taught me that the way I approach the hurdles in all my meets, would now be the way I approached all my battles in life. Whether I had to do it on my own or not, nothing would stop me from jumping over that hurdle which stood in my way. Another challenge I had to face on my own, which probably was one of the biggest challenges I ever have had to face, was learning how to teach myself how to become a hurdler. On the Berks Catholic track team; there were no hurdlers because there was no coach to teach anyone the fundamentals of hurdling. When I went out for the track team my freshmen year, I told the head coach I wanted to be a hurdler and I would teach myself how to do the hurdles. He replied in laughter “good luck with that kid”. From that moment on, I knew nothing would stand in my way from becoming a successful high school hurdler.

That same day, I went out to the book store and bought books on how to hurdle. I watched videos on YouTube of Olympic hurdlers and the basics of hurdling. I came up with my own drills and stretches which I do every day at practice. Then when it came time to race, without any coaching but my own, I beat the competition and never looked back. Every day when I was teaching myself how to hurdle, I remembered how hard it was when I first taught myself how to cook. Then I remembered that I conquered that hurdle. Three years later, I’m now able to say that I conquered the hurdle of teaching myself to become a successful hurdler. Track & Field has become so much more to me than just an extracurricular activity, it impacted my way of thinking for how I will approach every challenge put in front of me in my life. The ultimate impact track had on me, if I was able to teach myself how to cook and hurdle all by myself, then the sky is limit from here on out.