Peace Is Every Step Analysis

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Events like success and failure mold people into who they are. You often hear stories of people's initial success leading to the inflation of their ego, then their subsequent failure giving them a reality check. My story starts gradually with failure periodically infiltrating my self confidence, escalating until I believed that I embodied the concept, and ending with how I got back on my feet. This essay is tough for me to write, because it brings me back to a depressing time of my life - literally, I was depressed. Around second semester during my sophomore year, everything was not going well for me. It seemed like me and my girlfriend - a huge part of my life at the time - would fight every day. My parents relationship was at its worst, once…show more content…
I found a book in my living room titled “Peace is Every Step” by Thich Nhat Hanh, a monk who came to America to go to college. That day I discovered the importance of keeping a healthy mind. I read the book in two days, and two days later I sat down and read the entirety of it again. Even if it was just a book, to me it was more of a concept, and ideal, a goal, and it was happiness. It was a goal that I needed nothing more than willpower to succeed at. I forced myself to reflect on my life and the past couple months, realizing the extent of my emotions and their effect on my present situation. I wound up with a feeling of intense determination for change. When spring break ended I went back to school with a smile on my face and a mission. My mission was to be as outgoing as possible and focus on the good parts of my life. At home I devoted myself to my schoolwork, and in what little time I had I meditated. I aimed for an existence where I could just be happy, all the time, even if there was no other reason than the fact I was alive. Although I had to devote myself to school to get my grades up, I kept a smile on my face. I aced all of my finals and achieved a 3.43 for the semester. It wasn’t my best, yet I was
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