Not the Hero I Expected by John

Not the Hero I Expected by John - June 2017 Scholarship Essay

The school building is usually the place where most children begin the journey to discover who they will become in life. Some kids may have some idea of what they want to be when they grow up from the get go, even if the ideas they have are completely unrealistic because of their childish demeanor. That being said, I myself was one of the ones with an utterly ridiculous view of the future because when I was six-years-old, I wanted to grow up to be Spider-Man.
Looking back on it, I realize that the entire idea was illogical and somewhat comical, but I was only a six-year-old kid in kindergarten who thought that the hero’s powers were cool. The most famous character from Marvel had such an impact on me that I even used to pretend that I had his powers around my friends, although obviously nothing ever happened. Once I even (and I don’t know whether to blush or laugh at this) wore a Spider-Man suit underneath my regular school attire for an entire day. Needless to say, I was obsessed with the comic book hero -even though I didn’t know about him through comics- and thought that it would be fun to have his powers. Of course, as time went on, I realized that becoming a man who shot webs was impossible and eventually forgot all about it.
As I got a little bit older and began to see the impossibilities of being a superhero like Spider-Man, I tried to find something else to be when I grew up. When I was in second grade it became a chocolate factory runner because I liked the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; I more or less based what I wanted to be after what I liked as a kid. It was in the fourth grade, however, that I finally found something realistic to be passionate about: writing. To this day I desire to write stories for a living; my fourth grade teacher even reminded me at my graduation that I said that I would dedicate a book to her back when I was in her classroom. My writings were unoriginal when I first started, but I never gave up on pursuing this passion.
Eventually I found something to write about in the form of my Christian beliefs because I wanted to do the service of the Lord and give Him the honor that he deserved. My first original series centered around this concept and I was proud of myself for what I had accomplished. I later realized that what I had written was not exactly biblically accurate so I scrapped the entire series and was back to square one. But then I had the idea to write about something that I believed to be my greatest idea yet: a Christian superhero. After all, I still liked superheroes and wanted to do something to spread the Word of God, so why couldn’t I combine the two topics to create something extraordinary?! Looking at it now, maybe my Spider-Man fascination wasn’t just a child wanting awesome powers, but a desire to do the good works that a hero did that was just waiting to come to life!
Maybe I can’t be the hero that climbs up walls or shoots webs, but that childhood desire has manifested itself into something that I am extremely passionate about. The hero may not be what I pictured so long ago, but at least it allows me to keep that childhood desire alive. It just goes to show that you can’t forget where you came from, because even the tiniest details can have the largest impact on your future.