I had one major time in my life when I overcame adversity. I faced adversity at the end of my summer of my 8th grade year. It was my own personal nightmare. High school. For some people the start of high school is an exciting new change in their life. This story was very different for me because I had a horrible start to my high school career. I was faced with a problem. I grew up in a small town, and I went to a very small middle school. Living in a small town meant that everybody knew everybody. There was not one person I didn’t know that went to my middle school.
Even though growing up in a small school was a great experience because everybody knew each other it caused me to face the most difficult challenge of my life which was change. Transferring from a school with 82 kids in my class to 473 kids was very hard for me because I was not used to change. In my life everything was pretty simple. I played sports and had lots of friends. Going from my small community to a huge diverse school was difficult because everybody already had their friend groups and were not very accepting of new people. First way I overcame this social barrier was to play sports.
This was a huge way to help me feel part of a group rather than an outsider. I had to put myself out there and try something new. That new thing was joining the high school lacrosse team. So far I have played all 4 years of my high school career, and every time I am thankful that I decided to face my fear instead of running away from it. It was really tough joining a brand new team where I basically knew no one and nothing about the sport. The first day was terrible. I had hockey pads and a football jersey, and everyone else was in uniform.
I felt like a total outcast in this new environment. Eventually through practice, hard work, and dedication I started to get better at the sport, and I started to make new friends. Quickly the members of my team were family. I found a group of people to call my friends. Because I had the courage to put myself out there I was able to broaden my circle of friends and be part of a high school team. Personally, I had a fear rejection. That is why it was so hard to go out of my comfort zone and talk to new people. In order to conquer my fear I went to has many social gathering as I could.
No matter how anxious I was about it I made myself go to events no matter the size. The first affair I went to was a high school varsity football game. Students could superfan, and they have their own special section. At first I thought that the seniors were going to be stubborn and not let anybody into the superfan section. Luckily this wasn’t the case. They were very accepting and actually wanted more people in the student section. After a few months of feeling like an outcast, I finally felt like I was a part of the school when the seniors asked everybody to participate in our traditional school cheer.
At that moment I was thankful I had pushed myself out of my comfort zone. Suddenly high school wasn’t so intimidating. I never thought it was possible to make a big school feel so small. I finally felt like I was fitting in with everyone. All in all, the biggest adversity in my life was the change in small school to big school. I have learned that there are many ways to overcome the social barriers that I faced. Through joining sports and participating in school and non-school related activities I was able to overcome the difficulty of not feeling like I belonged and create strong bonds with new people.
Although this story had a hard start through my persistence I was able to conquer the challenge I faced. It is easy for people to hide from their fears. What sets me apart from others is my ability to face adversity head on. Now that I am finally graduating from the school I have come to love I am faced with the same problem I had when I was in 8th grade. Change. I have gone through this change before, and I now have knowledge to make this adjustment much easier. I can’t wait to join new programs at the school of my dreams and make new friends while doing so.
