Watch Me Dance by Taylor

Watch Me Dance by Taylor - February 2014 Scholarship Essay

Try-hard. I've been called that since elementary school, with my nose constantly in a book and my dreams of traveling the entire world. It was meant to be an insult, but how could it be? How could it be a bad thing for someone to try hard at everything she does? But still it was hurled at me in an attempt to make me stop trying. And unfortunately, it worked.

I spent my junior high years attempting to fit in. I put down my books, dropped my grades, and little by little was accepted by those I believed to be the right people. Trophy wife girls and white collared boys, they aspired to be only what would pay the most. Leaving behind their "childish dreams" they ran towards lives that would leave them dry and in a midlife crisis in a matter of years. One boy told me that he was going to be a doctor, not because he loved, or even liked it, but because "it makes money, and my real dream is stupid and too hard to reach." America, what has happened? When did our desire to climb the ladder become dependent on how hard something was to reach? When have our dreams been anything but the impossible? When did we become a nation that backed down because the world told us no?

I recently returned to my dreams. Torn down by others, it was difficult for me to pick them up again; but I did. You see, I am going to change the world. I am going to go everywhere there is to go and see everything there is to see. Whatever stands in my way will simply be a stepping stone to higher ground. I may not make any money on this earth but I will live the life I've always wanted. People tell me that this dream is crazy, that I'll never be able to accomplish it, and I refer those people to my favorite quote by Friedrich Nietzsche, "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music." So I will dance, pitying those who look on with disgust, unable to see the beauty of the impossible and hear the music of the gods.