The Hand I Played in a Rescue by Jesse

The Hand I Played in a Rescue by Jesse - January 2024 Scholarship Essay

My biggest contribution to my community is not related to getting accepted into a prestigious organization, personal awards, or high academics, but rather providing an enormous, vital quality that the world and everyone need: compassion.
During an extremely detrimental period of my life, I contributed to helping save a life. This life was a friend who relapsed into self-harm and needed larger doses of her medication to merely drag her through the day. She has obsessive-compulsive disorder, which forced her to be capable of only eating bread, yet she purged after every meal. She hid this for months behind a positive, light-hearted smile to not only frighten me but to distract herself from her unrelenting, daily hell.
Following her overdue confession, we talked for hours, and the conversation had some instances where it turned to me, and I finally felt comfortable and safe about opening up. After being forgotten and left behind due to my own personal faults and inadequacies, I opened up about beginning to develop a narrow outlook on myself for my perpetual mistakes and on others for them continually arriving and disappearing before my very eyes. It felt like a ceaseless cycle where I was permanently blind and directionless in my fight to prevail through adversity.
Our conversation taught me that there were people in this world who only wanted to protect and make others happy; she was one of them. She put aside her needs and prioritized her friends over everything, even her well-being and safety. Love is sacrifice, and she personified that; my intervention helped me learn this.
By deciding to communicate and connect with a person in desperate need of help, my contribution resulted in clarity and hope, not only for her but for myself as well. In our struggles, we have each other to help us navigate through our darkest nights.
I was a prominent factor in her endeavors, and my contribution helped to prevent her from conceding to her tragic dilemma, with her doing the same and rescuing me from my woes too. She slowly got better with the help from me and our dedicated friend group, and I too improved by overcoming my difficulties in having faith in people and feeling like I found somewhere where I belonged — endless contributions that ensured our happiness and birthed peace.
After time my friend moved to Illinois, and it has been a few years since we contacted each other. However, I am certain she is flourishing and still doing noble and benevolent acts of kindness. Despite being a year younger than me, she went through so much more than I did and became so much stronger, and I have no doubt that she is striving for even greater heights.
She and the rest of my friends’ exits also made one last contribution toward my growth: understanding that permanence is impossible. Without constant change, our existence would be void, and we would all be stationary blocks of matter. To sweat, cry, and bleed is to learn and change.
Facing the absurdity of impermanence and fully embracing it is the honest way to live, with every atom of our being needing to be exerted in order to truly live and enjoy the fight, simultaneously birthing the biggest contribution that I have made to my community: choosing to help and give absolutely everything I have for the sake of someone who has done the very same thing for so many people, ultimately helping save the life of a truly amazing and selfless person.