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Personal Narrative Essay: My Experience in My Life

• Categories: Adolescence

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Published: Mar 13, 2024

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Early childhood, adolescence, young adulthood.

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Essays About Daily Life: Top 5 Essay Examples and 7 Prompts

Writing about daily routines and events can be tricky, to help you get started discover our guide with essays about daily life examples and prompts. 

Talking about what we do every day can be mundane. However, it also has many physical and mental health benefits, and writing about our everyday lives helps us gain new perspectives. The records we have in personal journals let us read back on the events that already happened to relive a memory or increase our understanding of our current situation. 

If you prefer to avoid journaling, you can start by producing an essay. Creating an essay about our daily activities helps us appreciate life more and to stop taking things for granted. You can also check out these essays about life .

5 Essay Examples

• 1. My Daily Life as a Student – Essay by Mili
• 2. Write an Essay on Your Daily Life by Darshan Kadu

3. Essay on Daily Life in Ancient Egypt by Anonymous on PapersOwl.Com

• 4. My Daily Life by Ken Subedi

1. How to Write About Your Daily Life

2. why write essays about everyday life, 3. my daily life before, during, and after the pandemic, 4. the daily life of a student, 5. daily life of different age groups, 6. social media and our daily lives, 7. daily life: work-life balance, 1. my daily life as a student – essay  by mili.

“I get refreshed with the morning walk or a little exercise and then prepare myself for the study with utmost sincerity. It is against my principle to put off today’s work for tomorrow or to have any private tutor.”

Mili shares her simple life in this essay by describing everyday activities every student does, such as brushing her teeth and exercising. She mentions her classes and recess at 2 PM, where she and her friends eat snacks, play games, and chat. As a student, Mili has a busy six-day schedule but visits theaters after washing her uniforms on Sundays. You might also be interested in these essays about reflection .

2. Write an Essay on Your Daily Life  by Darshan Kadu

“Life is too precious to be idled away in lethargic existence and in useless ventures. My daily routine is jam-packed with actions and activities and keeps me and my mind busy all the time. The adventures of daily life make it interesting and an exciting journey.”

On school days, Kadu’s daily routine includes jogging, getting ready for school, and having breakfast with the whole family. After school and attending meetings, he usually plays with friends in the field. Kadu also mentions how he spends his holidays. He believes that even though he has a daily routine, it’s exciting and full of adventure.

“Ancient Egyptian’s daily life revolves around the Nile and the rich soil around it… daily lives of people have changed a lot since then.”

This essay shows how religion helped the Ancient Egyptians run their daily lives. The author discusses changes in festivals and the treatment of gods and royalty. To make an effective comparison, they use three examples: the importance of family, the Nile, and slavery.

The writer mentions that the Nile was essential in Ancient Egypt because it provided food to the people. Modern Egyptians no longer depend on the Nile river and its rich soil. As for working, people used to be enslaved by the rich and were forced to farm. Now, while farming is a work option, slavery doesn’t happen anymore. Early marriage is also forgotten, but the importance of family is still the same for all Egyptians.

4. My Daily Life  by Ken Subedi

“Sometimes I feel that I am really becoming a machine to have a strict time table. But I also believe that if we do everything on time, success will kiss us and we can lead a qualitative life.”

Subedi believes that people spend the day depending on their roles. Because he’s a student, he talks about how a typical school day goes for him, noting how he follows a strict schedule to do his homework, play with friends, and prepare for the next day. 

Subedi mentions how Saturdays and holidays distract his daily routine and shares how he feels like a machine with the readers. However, he also says that he knows it’s necessary to have a successful life. You might also be interested in these essays about New Year .

5. Long Essay on Television In Our Daily Life by Prasanna

“There are channels that beam programs 24 hours a day. Whereas this may be a boon for the people who do not have much to do anyway, it becomes a source of great distraction for children for whom the priority should be their studies.”

Technology like television is essential today but can also be a distraction to many. Prasanna refers to television as the most common form of entertainment that provides information on what’s happening worldwide. However, some shows have mature or violent elements that have adverse effects, especially on children. Additionally, those who spend too much time watching television will miss the thrill and excitement of going out and meeting other people.

7 Prompts for Essays About Daily Life

Experts say that in writing about your everyday life, you have to live with it. In writing this instructional prompt, you must first introduce and define essays about daily life. Next, give a step-by-step process for writing this topic and explain each step to the readers. Then, discuss the dos and don’ts of writing this essay, especially the information the piece needs.

For example, creating a detailed essay is good, but sometimes including too much information is boring to read. In this case, you should only incorporate relevant and exciting experiences throughout your day. 

Besides clearing the mind, producing essays about daily life improves writing skills, boosts memory retention, and more. Discuss the other benefits of writing an essay about this topic and verify the importance of each. 

This prompt encourages readers to create essays about their daily activities. To help you, read our guide explaining persuasive writing .

The coronavirus pandemic greatly affected everyone’s daily routine. To effectively share your experience and how the virus impacted your everyday life, divide your essay into three parts: before, during, and after the pandemic. 

Recount how your day started and ended for each period. Add any surprising events that occurred, if there are any. Then, include your opinion on the drastic changes you endured during the pandemic. 

A student’s life consists of waking up early, preparing for school, doing homework, and studying for hours. This prompt is perfect for you, regardless of level, if you’re a student. For this prompt, introduce your program to the readers and discuss the daily activities that make your typical day. Include the time management techniques you use and how effective they are for you as a student.

Our schedule changes depending on what we try to accomplish. For example, children are free to play, teenagers are expected to attend school, and adults are supposed to work. For this prompt, focus on each age group’s varying timetable and objectives, then compare and contrast their lives. You can interview someone from each age group to have a reliable representative.

Social media significantly changed our perception of what our daily lives should look like if we want to thrive. Many try to follow an unrealistic schedule to be as prosperous as the ones we see on our feeds.

Gather factual data on the social media users and the frequency with which they visit their accounts on each platform. Analyze these statistics and identify the positive and negative effects of being on social media multiple times a day.

Many struggles with achieving an effective work-life balance. For this prompt, research the average person’s success rate in accomplishing a good routine that strengthens their work and personal relationships. After establishing the benefits of having a functional work-life balance, list how the readers can find balance and use these tips in their daily lives.  

If you are interested in learning more, check out our essay writing tips !

Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

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How to Write a Life Story Essay

Last Updated: May 28, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Alicia Cook . Alicia Cook is a Professional Writer based in Newark, New Jersey. With over 12 years of experience, Alicia specializes in poetry and uses her platform to advocate for families affected by addiction and to fight for breaking the stigma against addiction and mental illness. She holds a BA in English and Journalism from Georgian Court University and an MBA from Saint Peter’s University. Alicia is a bestselling poet with Andrews McMeel Publishing and her work has been featured in numerous media outlets including the NY Post, CNN, USA Today, the HuffPost, the LA Times, American Songwriter Magazine, and Bustle. She was named by Teen Vogue as one of the 10 social media poets to know and her poetry mixtape, “Stuff I’ve Been Feeling Lately” was a finalist in the 2016 Goodreads Choice Awards. There are 11 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 101,116 times.

A life story essay involves telling the story of your life in a short, nonfiction format. It can also be called an autobiographical essay. In this essay, you will tell a factual story about some element of your life, perhaps for a college application or for a school assignment.

Preparing to Write Your Essay

• If you are writing a personal essay for a college application, it should serve to give the admissions committee a sense of who you are, beyond the basics of your application file. Your transcript, your letters of recommendation, and your resume will provide an overview of your work experience, interests, and academic record. Your essay allows you to make your application unique and individual to you, through your personal story. [2] X Research source
• The essay will also show the admissions committee how well you can write and structure an essay. Your essay should show you can create a meaningful piece of writing that interests your reader, conveys a unique message, and flows well.
• If you are writing a life story for a specific school assignment, such as in a composition course, ask your teacher about the assignment requirements.

• Include important events, such as your birth, your childhood and upbringing, and your adolescence. If family member births, deaths, marriages, and other life moments are important to your story, write those down as well.
• Focus on experiences that made a big impact on you and remain a strong memory. This may be a time where you learned an important life lesson, such as failing a test or watching someone else struggle and succeed, or where you felt an intense feeling or emotion, such as grief over someone’s death or joy over someone’s triumph.

• Have you faced a challenge in your life that you overcame, such as family struggles, health issues, a learning disability, or demanding academics?
• Do you have a story to tell about your cultural or ethnic background, or your family traditions?
• Have you dealt with failure or life obstacles?
• Do you have a unique passion or hobby?
• Have you traveled outside of your community, to another country, city, or area? What did you take away from the experience and how will you carry what you learned into a college setting?

• Remind yourself of your accomplishments by going through your resume. Think about any awards or experiences you would like spotlight in your essay. For example, explaining the story behind your Honor Roll status in high school, or how you worked hard to receive an internship in a prestigious program.
• Remember that your resume or C.V. is there to list off your accomplishments and awards, so your life story shouldn't just rehash them. Instead, use them as a jumping-off place to explain the process behind them, or what they reflect (or do not reflect) about you as a person.

• The New York Times publishes stellar examples of high school life story essays each year. You can read some of them on the NYT website. [8] X Research source

Writing Your Essay

• For example, you may look back at your time in foster care as a child or when you scored your first paying job. Consider how you handled these situations and any life lessons you learned from these lessons. Try to connect past experiences to who you are now, or who you aspire to be in the future.
• Your time in foster care, for example, may have taught you resilience, perseverance and a sense of curiosity around how other families function and live. This could then tie into your application to a Journalism program, as the experience shows you have a persistent nature and a desire to investigate other people’s stories or experiences.

• Certain life story essays have become cliche and familiar to admission committees. Avoid sports injuries stories, such as the time you injured your ankle in a game and had to find a way to persevere. You should also avoid using an overseas trip to a poor, foreign country as the basis for your self transformation. This is a familiar theme that many admission committees will consider cliche and not unique or authentic. [11] X Research source
• Other common, cliche topics to avoid include vacations, "adversity" as an undeveloped theme, or the "journey". [12] X Research source

• Try to phrase your thesis in terms of a lesson learned. For example, “Although growing up in foster care in a troubled neighborhood was challenging and difficult, it taught me that I can be more than my upbringing or my background through hard work, perseverance, and education.”
• You can also phrase your thesis in terms of lessons you have yet to learn, or seek to learn through the program you are applying for. For example, “Growing up surrounded by my mother’s traditional cooking and cultural habits that have been passed down through the generations of my family, I realized I wanted to discover and honor the traditions of other, ancient cultures with a career in archaeology.”
• Both of these thesis statements are good because they tell your readers exactly what to expect in clear detail.

• An anecdote is a very short story that carries moral or symbolic weight. It can be a poetic or powerful way to start your essay and engage your reader right away. You may want to start directly with a retelling of a key past experience or the moment you realized a life lesson.
• For example, you could start with a vivid memory, such as this from an essay that got its author into Harvard Business School: "I first considered applying to Berry College while dangling from a fifty-food Georgia pine tree, encouraging a high school classmate, literally, to make a leap of faith." [15] X Research source This opening line gives a vivid mental picture of what the author was doing at a specific, crucial moment in time and starts off the theme of "leaps of faith" that is carried through the rest of the essay.
• Another great example clearly communicates the author's emotional state from the opening moments: "Through seven-year-old eyes I watched in terror as my mother grimaced in pain." This essay, by a prospective medical school student, goes on to tell about her experience being at her brother's birth and how it shaped her desire to become an OB/GYN. The opening line sets the scene and lets you know immediately what the author was feeling during this important experience. It also resists reader expectations, since it begins with pain but ends in the joy of her brother's birth.
• Avoid using a quotation. This is an extremely cliche way to begin an essay and could put your reader off immediately. If you simply must use a quotation, avoid generic quotes like “Spread your wings and fly” or “There is no ‘I’ in ‘team’”. Choose a quotation that relates directly to your experience or the theme of your essay. This could be a quotation from a poem or piece of writing that speaks to you, moves you, or helped you during a rough time.

• Always use the first person in a personal essay. The essay should be coming from you and should tell the reader directly about your life experiences, with “I” statements.
• For example, avoid something such as “I had a hard time growing up. I was in a bad situation.” You can expand this to be more distinct, but still carry a similar tone and voice. “When I was growing up in foster care, I had difficulties connecting with my foster parents and with my new neighborhood. At the time, I thought I was in a bad situation I would never be able to be free from.”

• For example, consider this statement: "I am a good debater. I am highly motivated and have been a strong leader all through high school." This gives only the barest detail, and does not allow your reader any personal or unique information that will set you apart from the ten billion other essays she has to sift through.
• In contrast, consider this one: "My mother says I'm loud. I say you have to speak up to be heard. As president of my high school's debate team for the past three years, I have learned to show courage even when my heart is pounding in my throat. I have learned to consider the views of people different than myself, and even to argue for them when I passionately disagree. I have learned to lead teams in approaching complicated issues. And, most importantly for a formerly shy young girl, I have found my voice." This example shows personality, uses parallel structure for impact, and gives concrete detail about what the author has learned from her life experience as a debater.

• An example of a passive sentence is: “The cake was eaten by the dog.” The subject (the dog) is not in the expected subject position (first) and is not "doing" the expected action. This is confusing and can often be unclear.
• An example of an active sentence is: “The dog ate the cake.” The subject (the dog) is in the subject position (first), and is doing the expected action. This is much more clear for the reader and is a stronger sentence.

• Lead the reader INTO your story with a powerful beginning, such as an anecdote or a quote.
• Take the reader THROUGH your story with the context and key parts of your experience.
• End with the BEYOND message about how the experience has affected who you are now and who you want to be in college and after college.

Editing Your Essay

• For example, a sentence like “I struggled during my first year of college, feeling overwhelmed by new experiences and new people” is not very strong because it states the obvious and does not distinguish you are unique or singular. Most people struggle and feel overwhelmed during their first year of college. Adjust sentences like this so they appear unique to you.
• For example, consider this: “During my first year of college, I struggled with meeting deadlines and assignments. My previous home life was not very structured or strict, so I had to teach myself discipline and the value of deadlines.” This relates your struggle to something personal and explains how you learned from it.

• It can be difficult to proofread your own work, so reach out to a teacher, a mentor, a family member, or a friend and ask them to read over your essay. They can act as first readers and respond to any proofreading errors, as well as the essay as a whole.

Expert Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://education.seattlepi.com/write-thesis-statement-autobiographical-essay-1686.html
• ↑ https://study.com/learn/lesson/autobiography-essay-examples-steps.html
• ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201101/writing-compelling-life-story-in-500-words-or-less
• ↑ Alicia Cook. Professional Writer. Expert Interview. 11 December 2020.
• ↑ https://mycustomessay.com/blog/how-to-write-an-autobiography-essay.html
• ↑ http://www.ahwatukee.com/community_focus/article_c79b33da-09a5-11e3-95a8-001a4bcf887a.html
• ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/10/your-money/four-stand-out-college-essays-about-money.html
• ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY9AdFx0L4s
• ↑ https://www.medina-esc.org/Downloads/Practical%20Advice%20Writing%20College%20App%20Essay.pdf
• ↑ http://www.businessinsider.com/successful-harvard-business-school-essays-2012-11?op=1
• ↑ http://www.grammar-monster.com/glossary/passive_sentences.htm

About This Article

A life story essay is an essay that tells the story of your life in a short, nonfiction format. Start by coming up with a thesis statement, which will help you structure your essay. For example, your thesis could be about the influence of your family's culture on your life or how you've grown from overcoming challenging circumstances. You can include important life events that link to your thesis, like jobs you’ve worked, friendships that have influenced you, or sports competitions you’ve won. Consider starting your essay with an anecdote that introduces your thesis. For instance, if you're writing about your family's culture, you could start by talking about the first festival you went to and how it inspired you. Finish by writing about how the experiences have affected you and who you want to be in the future. For more tips from our Education co-author, including how to edit your essay effectively, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to Write About Yourself in a College Essay | Examples

Published on September 21, 2021 by Kirsten Courault . Revised on May 31, 2023.

An insightful college admissions essay requires deep self-reflection, authenticity, and a balance between confidence and vulnerability. Your essay shouldn’t just be a resume of your experiences; colleges are looking for a story that demonstrates your most important values and qualities.

To write about your achievements and qualities without sounding arrogant, use specific stories to illustrate them. You can also write about challenges you’ve faced or mistakes you’ve made to show vulnerability and personal growth.

Table of contents

Start with self-reflection, how to write about challenges and mistakes, how to write about your achievements and qualities, how to write about a cliché experience, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about college application essays.

Before you start writing, spend some time reflecting to identify your values and qualities. You should do a comprehensive brainstorming session, but here are a few questions to get you started:

• What are three words your friends or family would use to describe you, and why would they choose them?
• Whom do you admire most and why?
• What are the top five things you are thankful for?
• What has inspired your hobbies or future goals?
• What are you most proud of? Ashamed of?

As you self-reflect, consider how your values and goals reflect your prospective university’s program and culture, and brainstorm stories that demonstrate the fit between the two.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

Writing about difficult experiences can be an effective way to show authenticity and create an emotional connection to the reader, but choose carefully which details to share, and aim to demonstrate how the experience helped you learn and grow.

Be vulnerable

It’s not necessary to have a tragic story or a huge confession. But you should openly share your thoughts, feelings, and experiences to evoke an emotional response from the reader. Even a cliché or mundane topic can be made interesting with honest reflection. This honesty is a preface to self-reflection and insight in the essay’s conclusion.

Don’t overshare

With difficult topics, you shouldn’t focus too much on negative aspects. Instead, use your challenging circumstances as a brief introduction to how you responded positively.

Share what you have learned

It’s okay to include your failure or mistakes in your essay if you include a lesson learned. After telling a descriptive, honest story, you should explain what you learned and how you applied it to your life.

While it’s good to sell your strengths, you also don’t want to come across as arrogant. Instead of just stating your extracurricular activities, achievements, or personal qualities, aim to discreetly incorporate them into your story.

Brag indirectly

Mention your extracurricular activities or awards in passing, not outright, to avoid sounding like you’re bragging from a resume.

Use stories to prove your qualities

Even if you don’t have any impressive academic achievements or extracurriculars, you can still demonstrate your academic or personal character. But you should use personal examples to provide proof. In other words, show evidence of your character instead of just telling.

Many high school students write about common topics such as sports, volunteer work, or their family. Your essay topic doesn’t have to be groundbreaking, but do try to include unexpected personal details and your authentic voice to make your essay stand out .

To find an original angle, try these techniques:

• Focus on a specific moment, and describe the scene using your five senses.
• Mention objects that have special significance to you.
• Instead of following a common story arc, include a surprising twist or insight.

Your unique voice can shed new perspective on a common human experience while also revealing your personality. When read out loud, the essay should sound like you are talking.

If you want to know more about academic writing , effective communication , or parts of speech , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Academic writing

• Writing process
• Transition words
• Passive voice
• Paraphrasing

 Communication

• How to end an email
• Ms, mrs, miss
• How to start an email
• I hope this email finds you well
• Hope you are doing well

 Parts of speech

• Personal pronouns
• Conjunctions

First, spend time reflecting on your core values and character . You can start with these questions:

However, you should do a comprehensive brainstorming session to fully understand your values. Also consider how your values and goals match your prospective university’s program and culture. Then, brainstorm stories that illustrate the fit between the two.

When writing about yourself , including difficult experiences or failures can be a great way to show vulnerability and authenticity, but be careful not to overshare, and focus on showing how you matured from the experience.

Through specific stories, you can weave your achievements and qualities into your essay so that it doesn’t seem like you’re bragging from a resume.

Include specific, personal details and use your authentic voice to shed a new perspective on a common human experience.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Courault, K. (2023, May 31). How to Write About Yourself in a College Essay | Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved April 2, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/college-essay/write-about-yourself/

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My Life Essay - 100, 200, 500 Words

Life is the state of being alive and the experience of living. It is a characteristic that distinguishes physical entities with biological processes, such as growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli, from those without such processes. Life is a complex and diverse phenomenon that encompasses a wide range of forms and functions. Life can be found in every corner of the earth, from the tiniest microorganisms to the largest animals. It is a precious and fragile thing, and scientists continue to study and understand more about the intricacies of life every day.

100 Words on My Life Essay

200 words on my life essay, 500 words on my life essay.

My life has been a journey of growth and learning. From a young age, I have always been curious and eager to explore the world around me. I have had many experiences that have shaped who I am today. Growing up in a small town gave me a sense of community and belonging while also allowing me to develop a love for nature and the outdoors.

My education has also played a significant role in shaping my life. I have always been a dedicated student and have worked hard to achieve my goals. I have learned valuable lessons about perseverance and determination, and I have been able to apply these lessons to other areas of my life.

My life has been a journey full of ups and downs, but overall it has been a fulfilling and meaningful experience.

Routine of My Daily Life

I am a student, and I have always been passionate about learning. My daily routine starts with waking up early in the morning, and I usually wake up at 6 am. I get dressed and have my breakfast, which generally includes cereal or toast with some fruit. After breakfast, I spend some time reviewing my notes and studying for my upcoming exams.

I then head off to school, where I spend most of my day attending classes and participating in various activities. I am involved in several extracurricular activities, such as sports, debate teams and volunteering which keeps me busy and active. After school, I come back home and spend some time doing my homework and finishing any pending assignments.

Overall, my life is filled with a balance of work and play. I am always busy, but I make sure to make time for the things that matter most to me. I believe that life is about making the most of every opportunity and making the most of every moment. I am grateful for the experiences that I have had, and I am excited about the future.

Life is a journey full of ups and downs, opportunities, and challenges. It is unique for everyone and it is something that we all have to experience on our own. As a student, my life is currently focused on school and my future aspirations. There have been some important moments in my life that I will always remember, and I am always looking for ways to improve my life.

Memorable Life Experiences

One of the most important moments in my life was when I received my first acceptance letter from a university. It was a moment of pride and accomplishment, and it made me feel like all of my hard work had finally paid off. This moment inspired me to work even harder and to strive for success in all of my future endeavours.

Another important moment that made me incredibly proud was when I received the first prize in an inter-school science competition. I had been working on my project for months, conducting experiments, analysing data, and perfecting my presentation. The competition was fierce, with students from all over the city presenting their projects.

How I Felt | When my name was called as the winner, I was overwhelmed with emotion. All of my hard work and dedication had paid off, and I was being recognized for my achievements. The audience erupted into applause, and I felt a sense of pride and accomplishment that I will never forget.

Despite these positive moments, there have also been challenges that I have had to face. One of the biggest challenges I have faced is balancing my schoolwork and extracurricular activities. It can be difficult to find the time to study, participate in sports and clubs, and still have time for my friends and family. However, I have learned that time management and prioritisation are important skills to have, and I am always working to improve in these areas.

Moving forward, I have many aspirations for my future. I hope to continue my education and obtain a degree in a field that I am passionate about. I also want to travel the world and experience different cultures, and to use my education and skills to make a positive impact on others.

Volunteer Activities

I have also been involved in several volunteer activities, and I have found them to be incredibly rewarding. I have volunteered for various causes, such as helping out at homeless shelters and working with underprivileged children. It has given me a sense of purpose, and it has made me realise the importance of giving back to society.

In order to achieve my goals, I know that I need to continue to work hard and to be proactive. I want to stay focused and determined, and to never give up on my dreams. I also want to continue to learn and grow, and to always be open to new opportunities and experiences.

My life has been a journey that has been full of memorable experiences. I have had my fair share of ups and downs, but I have learned to appreciate and make the most of every moment. I am grateful for the people in my life, and I am excited to see what the future holds.

Explore Career Options (By Industry)

• Construction
• Entertainment
• Manufacturing
• Information Technology

Bio Medical Engineer

The field of biomedical engineering opens up a universe of expert chances. An Individual in the biomedical engineering career path work in the field of engineering as well as medicine, in order to find out solutions to common problems of the two fields. The biomedical engineering job opportunities are to collaborate with doctors and researchers to develop medical systems, equipment, or devices that can solve clinical problems. Here we will be discussing jobs after biomedical engineering, how to get a job in biomedical engineering, biomedical engineering scope, and salary. 

Data Administrator

Database professionals use software to store and organise data such as financial information, and customer shipping records. Individuals who opt for a career as data administrators ensure that data is available for users and secured from unauthorised sales. DB administrators may work in various types of industries. It may involve computer systems design, service firms, insurance companies, banks and hospitals.

Ethical Hacker

A career as ethical hacker involves various challenges and provides lucrative opportunities in the digital era where every giant business and startup owns its cyberspace on the world wide web. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path try to find the vulnerabilities in the cyber system to get its authority. If he or she succeeds in it then he or she gets its illegal authority. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path then steal information or delete the file that could affect the business, functioning, or services of the organization.

Data Analyst

The invention of the database has given fresh breath to the people involved in the data analytics career path. Analysis refers to splitting up a whole into its individual components for individual analysis. Data analysis is a method through which raw data are processed and transformed into information that would be beneficial for user strategic thinking.

Data are collected and examined to respond to questions, evaluate hypotheses or contradict theories. It is a tool for analyzing, transforming, modeling, and arranging data with useful knowledge, to assist in decision-making and methods, encompassing various strategies, and is used in different fields of business, research, and social science.

Geothermal Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as geothermal engineers are the professionals involved in the processing of geothermal energy. The responsibilities of geothermal engineers may vary depending on the workplace location. Those who work in fields design facilities to process and distribute geothermal energy. They oversee the functioning of machinery used in the field.

Remote Sensing Technician

Individuals who opt for a career as a remote sensing technician possess unique personalities. Remote sensing analysts seem to be rational human beings, they are strong, independent, persistent, sincere, realistic and resourceful. Some of them are analytical as well, which means they are intelligent, introspective and inquisitive. 

Remote sensing scientists use remote sensing technology to support scientists in fields such as community planning, flight planning or the management of natural resources. Analysing data collected from aircraft, satellites or ground-based platforms using statistical analysis software, image analysis software or Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a significant part of their work. Do you want to learn how to become remote sensing technician? There's no need to be concerned; we've devised a simple remote sensing technician career path for you. Scroll through the pages and read.

Geotechnical engineer

The role of geotechnical engineer starts with reviewing the projects needed to define the required material properties. The work responsibilities are followed by a site investigation of rock, soil, fault distribution and bedrock properties on and below an area of interest. The investigation is aimed to improve the ground engineering design and determine their engineering properties that include how they will interact with, on or in a proposed construction. 

The role of geotechnical engineer in mining includes designing and determining the type of foundations, earthworks, and or pavement subgrades required for the intended man-made structures to be made. Geotechnical engineering jobs are involved in earthen and concrete dam construction projects, working under a range of normal and extreme loading conditions. 

Cartographer

How fascinating it is to represent the whole world on just a piece of paper or a sphere. With the help of maps, we are able to represent the real world on a much smaller scale. Individuals who opt for a career as a cartographer are those who make maps. But, cartography is not just limited to maps, it is about a mixture of art , science , and technology. As a cartographer, not only you will create maps but use various geodetic surveys and remote sensing systems to measure, analyse, and create different maps for political, cultural or educational purposes.

Budget Analyst

Budget analysis, in a nutshell, entails thoroughly analyzing the details of a financial budget. The budget analysis aims to better understand and manage revenue. Budget analysts assist in the achievement of financial targets, the preservation of profitability, and the pursuit of long-term growth for a business. Budget analysts generally have a bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, economics, or a closely related field. Knowledge of Financial Management is of prime importance in this career.

Product Manager

A Product Manager is a professional responsible for product planning and marketing. He or she manages the product throughout the Product Life Cycle, gathering and prioritising the product. A product manager job description includes defining the product vision and working closely with team members of other departments to deliver winning products.  

Underwriter

An underwriter is a person who assesses and evaluates the risk of insurance in his or her field like mortgage, loan, health policy, investment, and so on and so forth. The underwriter career path does involve risks as analysing the risks means finding out if there is a way for the insurance underwriter jobs to recover the money from its clients. If the risk turns out to be too much for the company then in the future it is an underwriter who will be held accountable for it. Therefore, one must carry out his or her job with a lot of attention and diligence.

Finance Executive

Operations manager.

Individuals in the operations manager jobs are responsible for ensuring the efficiency of each department to acquire its optimal goal. They plan the use of resources and distribution of materials. The operations manager's job description includes managing budgets, negotiating contracts, and performing administrative tasks.

Bank Probationary Officer (PO)

Investment director.

An investment director is a person who helps corporations and individuals manage their finances. They can help them develop a strategy to achieve their goals, including paying off debts and investing in the future. In addition, he or she can help individuals make informed decisions.

Welding Engineer

Welding Engineer Job Description: A Welding Engineer work involves managing welding projects and supervising welding teams. He or she is responsible for reviewing welding procedures, processes and documentation. A career as Welding Engineer involves conducting failure analyses and causes on welding issues. 

Transportation Planner

A career as Transportation Planner requires technical application of science and technology in engineering, particularly the concepts, equipment and technologies involved in the production of products and services. In fields like land use, infrastructure review, ecological standards and street design, he or she considers issues of health, environment and performance. A Transportation Planner assigns resources for implementing and designing programmes. He or she is responsible for assessing needs, preparing plans and forecasts and compliance with regulations.

An expert in plumbing is aware of building regulations and safety standards and works to make sure these standards are upheld. Testing pipes for leakage using air pressure and other gauges, and also the ability to construct new pipe systems by cutting, fitting, measuring and threading pipes are some of the other more involved aspects of plumbing. Individuals in the plumber career path are self-employed or work for a small business employing less than ten people, though some might find working for larger entities or the government more desirable.

Construction Manager

Individuals who opt for a career as construction managers have a senior-level management role offered in construction firms. Responsibilities in the construction management career path are assigning tasks to workers, inspecting their work, and coordinating with other professionals including architects, subcontractors, and building services engineers.

Urban Planner

Urban Planning careers revolve around the idea of developing a plan to use the land optimally, without affecting the environment. Urban planning jobs are offered to those candidates who are skilled in making the right use of land to distribute the growing population, to create various communities. 

Urban planning careers come with the opportunity to make changes to the existing cities and towns. They identify various community needs and make short and long-term plans accordingly.

Highway Engineer

Highway Engineer Job Description:  A Highway Engineer is a civil engineer who specialises in planning and building thousands of miles of roads that support connectivity and allow transportation across the country. He or she ensures that traffic management schemes are effectively planned concerning economic sustainability and successful implementation.

Environmental Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as an environmental engineer are construction professionals who utilise the skills and knowledge of biology, soil science, chemistry and the concept of engineering to design and develop projects that serve as solutions to various environmental problems. 

Naval Architect

A Naval Architect is a professional who designs, produces and repairs safe and sea-worthy surfaces or underwater structures. A Naval Architect stays involved in creating and designing ships, ferries, submarines and yachts with implementation of various principles such as gravity, ideal hull form, buoyancy and stability. 

Orthotist and Prosthetist

Orthotists and Prosthetists are professionals who provide aid to patients with disabilities. They fix them to artificial limbs (prosthetics) and help them to regain stability. There are times when people lose their limbs in an accident. In some other occasions, they are born without a limb or orthopaedic impairment. Orthotists and prosthetists play a crucial role in their lives with fixing them to assistive devices and provide mobility.

Veterinary Doctor

Pathologist.

A career in pathology in India is filled with several responsibilities as it is a medical branch and affects human lives. The demand for pathologists has been increasing over the past few years as people are getting more aware of different diseases. Not only that, but an increase in population and lifestyle changes have also contributed to the increase in a pathologist’s demand. The pathology careers provide an extremely huge number of opportunities and if you want to be a part of the medical field you can consider being a pathologist. If you want to know more about a career in pathology in India then continue reading this article.

Speech Therapist

Gynaecologist.

Gynaecology can be defined as the study of the female body. The job outlook for gynaecology is excellent since there is evergreen demand for one because of their responsibility of dealing with not only women’s health but also fertility and pregnancy issues. Although most women prefer to have a women obstetrician gynaecologist as their doctor, men also explore a career as a gynaecologist and there are ample amounts of male doctors in the field who are gynaecologists and aid women during delivery and childbirth. 

An oncologist is a specialised doctor responsible for providing medical care to patients diagnosed with cancer. He or she uses several therapies to control the cancer and its effect on the human body such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation therapy and biopsy. An oncologist designs a treatment plan based on a pathology report after diagnosing the type of cancer and where it is spreading inside the body.

Audiologist

The audiologist career involves audiology professionals who are responsible to treat hearing loss and proactively preventing the relevant damage. Individuals who opt for a career as an audiologist use various testing strategies with the aim to determine if someone has a normal sensitivity to sounds or not. After the identification of hearing loss, a hearing doctor is required to determine which sections of the hearing are affected, to what extent they are affected, and where the wound causing the hearing loss is found. As soon as the hearing loss is identified, the patients are provided with recommendations for interventions and rehabilitation such as hearing aids, cochlear implants, and appropriate medical referrals. While audiology is a branch of science that studies and researches hearing, balance, and related disorders.

Hospital Administrator

The hospital Administrator is in charge of organising and supervising the daily operations of medical services and facilities. This organising includes managing of organisation’s staff and its members in service, budgets, service reports, departmental reporting and taking reminders of patient care and services.

For an individual who opts for a career as an actor, the primary responsibility is to completely speak to the character he or she is playing and to persuade the crowd that the character is genuine by connecting with them and bringing them into the story. This applies to significant roles and littler parts, as all roles join to make an effective creation. Here in this article, we will discuss how to become an actor in India, actor exams, actor salary in India, and actor jobs. 

Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats create and direct original routines for themselves, in addition to developing interpretations of existing routines. The work of circus acrobats can be seen in a variety of performance settings, including circus, reality shows, sports events like the Olympics, movies and commercials. Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats must be prepared to face rejections and intermittent periods of work. The creativity of acrobats may extend to other aspects of the performance. For example, acrobats in the circus may work with gym trainers, celebrities or collaborate with other professionals to enhance such performance elements as costume and or maybe at the teaching end of the career.

Video Game Designer

Career as a video game designer is filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. A video game designer is someone who is involved in the process of creating a game from day one. He or she is responsible for fulfilling duties like designing the character of the game, the several levels involved, plot, art and similar other elements. Individuals who opt for a career as a video game designer may also write the codes for the game using different programming languages.

Depending on the video game designer job description and experience they may also have to lead a team and do the early testing of the game in order to suggest changes and find loopholes.

Radio Jockey

Radio Jockey is an exciting, promising career and a great challenge for music lovers. If you are really interested in a career as radio jockey, then it is very important for an RJ to have an automatic, fun, and friendly personality. If you want to get a job done in this field, a strong command of the language and a good voice are always good things. Apart from this, in order to be a good radio jockey, you will also listen to good radio jockeys so that you can understand their style and later make your own by practicing.

A career as radio jockey has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. If you want to know more about a career as radio jockey, and how to become a radio jockey then continue reading the article.

Choreographer

The word “choreography" actually comes from Greek words that mean “dance writing." Individuals who opt for a career as a choreographer create and direct original dances, in addition to developing interpretations of existing dances. A Choreographer dances and utilises his or her creativity in other aspects of dance performance. For example, he or she may work with the music director to select music or collaborate with other famous choreographers to enhance such performance elements as lighting, costume and set design.

Videographer

Multimedia specialist.

A multimedia specialist is a media professional who creates, audio, videos, graphic image files, computer animations for multimedia applications. He or she is responsible for planning, producing, and maintaining websites and applications. 

Social Media Manager

A career as social media manager involves implementing the company’s or brand’s marketing plan across all social media channels. Social media managers help in building or improving a brand’s or a company’s website traffic, build brand awareness, create and implement marketing and brand strategy. Social media managers are key to important social communication as well.

Copy Writer

In a career as a copywriter, one has to consult with the client and understand the brief well. A career as a copywriter has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. Several new mediums of advertising are opening therefore making it a lucrative career choice. Students can pursue various copywriter courses such as Journalism , Advertising , Marketing Management . Here, we have discussed how to become a freelance copywriter, copywriter career path, how to become a copywriter in India, and copywriting career outlook. 

Careers in journalism are filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. One cannot afford to miss out on the details. As it is the small details that provide insights into a story. Depending on those insights a journalist goes about writing a news article. A journalism career can be stressful at times but if you are someone who is passionate about it then it is the right choice for you. If you want to know more about the media field and journalist career then continue reading this article.

For publishing books, newspapers, magazines and digital material, editorial and commercial strategies are set by publishers. Individuals in publishing career paths make choices about the markets their businesses will reach and the type of content that their audience will be served. Individuals in book publisher careers collaborate with editorial staff, designers, authors, and freelance contributors who develop and manage the creation of content.

In a career as a vlogger, one generally works for himself or herself. However, once an individual has gained viewership there are several brands and companies that approach them for paid collaboration. It is one of those fields where an individual can earn well while following his or her passion. 

Ever since internet costs got reduced the viewership for these types of content has increased on a large scale. Therefore, a career as a vlogger has a lot to offer. If you want to know more about the Vlogger eligibility, roles and responsibilities then continue reading the article. 

Individuals in the editor career path is an unsung hero of the news industry who polishes the language of the news stories provided by stringers, reporters, copywriters and content writers and also news agencies. Individuals who opt for a career as an editor make it more persuasive, concise and clear for readers. In this article, we will discuss the details of the editor's career path such as how to become an editor in India, editor salary in India and editor skills and qualities.

Linguistic meaning is related to language or Linguistics which is the study of languages. A career as a linguistic meaning, a profession that is based on the scientific study of language, and it's a very broad field with many specialities. Famous linguists work in academia, researching and teaching different areas of language, such as phonetics (sounds), syntax (word order) and semantics (meaning). 

Other researchers focus on specialities like computational linguistics, which seeks to better match human and computer language capacities, or applied linguistics, which is concerned with improving language education. Still, others work as language experts for the government, advertising companies, dictionary publishers and various other private enterprises. Some might work from home as freelance linguists. Philologist, phonologist, and dialectician are some of Linguist synonym. Linguists can study French , German , Italian . 

Public Relation Executive

Travel journalist.

The career of a travel journalist is full of passion, excitement and responsibility. Journalism as a career could be challenging at times, but if you're someone who has been genuinely enthusiastic about all this, then it is the best decision for you. Travel journalism jobs are all about insightful, artfully written, informative narratives designed to cover the travel industry. Travel Journalist is someone who explores, gathers and presents information as a news article.

Quality Controller

A quality controller plays a crucial role in an organisation. He or she is responsible for performing quality checks on manufactured products. He or she identifies the defects in a product and rejects the product. 

A quality controller records detailed information about products with defects and sends it to the supervisor or plant manager to take necessary actions to improve the production process.

Production Manager

Merchandiser.

A QA Lead is in charge of the QA Team. The role of QA Lead comes with the responsibility of assessing services and products in order to determine that he or she meets the quality standards. He or she develops, implements and manages test plans. 

Metallurgical Engineer

A metallurgical engineer is a professional who studies and produces materials that bring power to our world. He or she extracts metals from ores and rocks and transforms them into alloys, high-purity metals and other materials used in developing infrastructure, transportation and healthcare equipment. 

Azure Administrator

An Azure Administrator is a professional responsible for implementing, monitoring, and maintaining Azure Solutions. He or she manages cloud infrastructure service instances and various cloud servers as well as sets up public and private cloud systems. 

AWS Solution Architect

An AWS Solution Architect is someone who specializes in developing and implementing cloud computing systems. He or she has a good understanding of the various aspects of cloud computing and can confidently deploy and manage their systems. He or she troubleshoots the issues and evaluates the risk from the third party. 

Computer Programmer

Careers in computer programming primarily refer to the systematic act of writing code and moreover include wider computer science areas. The word 'programmer' or 'coder' has entered into practice with the growing number of newly self-taught tech enthusiasts. Computer programming careers involve the use of designs created by software developers and engineers and transforming them into commands that can be implemented by computers. These commands result in regular usage of social media sites, word-processing applications and browsers.

ITSM Manager

Information security manager.

Individuals in the information security manager career path involves in overseeing and controlling all aspects of computer security. The IT security manager job description includes planning and carrying out security measures to protect the business data and information from corruption, theft, unauthorised access, and deliberate attack 

Business Intelligence Developer

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About My Life Essay Example

Personal narrative essays are often a part of the student’s assignments that professors ask their students to write. The most important reason for assigning such essays to the students is to develop their analytical and self-reflection skills. Mostly these personal narrative essays are based upon the life experiences of a person like narrative essay about my life could be an example of it. Here is a sample narrative essay about my life that students can consider for writing a similar type of essay writing assignment work by their professors.

• Essay Sample on My Life
• Introduction of My Life Essay
• My Love for Animals and Books
• People of my Surrounding
• Travel Experiences and Travelogues

Essay Sample on My Life

Introduction of My Life Essay I have been a keen learner towards new things from my very childhood; it recalls the memories about the way I used to manage my books appropriately from a very little age. As time passes I also realized the importance of many other things that surrounds me apart from my books. Then it came the time when I have to depart my home from higher education to pursue my graduate degree at Stanford College. At that time I was totally amused with the world outside my books where people are interacting with each other for ages. Then in the same year, an epiphany moment happened to me when I found my second love after books that are for the Animals. I used to communicate with them for hours and hours and tried to understand their emotions. This was the turning point of my life that raised my love for Animals to a huge account. After my College get completed a teaching job becomes a golden opportunity for me that I wanted to pursue from my childhood. It was like a dream comes true. This is how I spent the stage of my life till now and I am still a teacher giving education to the students. Main Body of My Life Essay My Love for Animals and Books I was very oblivious towards my love for the animals and my books they were the most important and inseparable part of my life. I still remember how my entire pocket money during college days went to feed the Animals in my surrounding. I never skip a day to spend my time with those loyal creatures and find it very relieving to talk with them. Books were also my all-time companion from childhood and whenever I used to travel the only thing that I did is to read and read for hours and days. I was very much inspired by the great essayist Francis Bacon that “Some books to be tasted, others to be chewed while there are some that must be chewed and digested”. This was also a reason that why I was too affectionate towards the books from a little age. Even today I cannot spend a single day without my books. I think everyone should have a crush on them as they keep us moving forward without asking for much investment. It could be a small investment that can turn up into a huge profit throughout your life. Buy Customized Essay on Story of my life At Cheapest Price Order Now People of my Surrounding The people who matter a lot in my surroundings were my parent and siblings who always acted as catalysts towards my success to become a good teacher. My mother always supported me emotionally whenever I went through the trials and tribulations of emotions during my teenage. My father never makes me feel in scarcity of money and that is how I always managed to purchase both cheap and expensive books. Money never blocked my way of loving books more and more. Most of the books were based on literature like Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy are my favorite author along with Mark Twain. I can never forget the novel Huckleberry Finn throughout my life. My siblings, two elder sisters were always there in my bad times and I shared all my problems with them in my bad phase of life. Travel Experiences and Travelogues I also love to travel for days, months, and years and to write my travelogues is the hobby that only arises in me after I started going through international tours. So far I have written many travelogues based upon my tours to the different destinations of the world. This was the entire journey of my life till now. See Also: Someone Who Has Impacted Your Life Essay Example For Free Conclusion This is how I explored the story of my life till now and hope that my compassion for Animals and my books always remain the same. I have heard somewhere that libraries and bicycles are always good for the people as they keep us progressive without asking for any kind of investment. I am very much deep in this belief and that is why my love for books and animals rises every day. Hire USA Experts for Story of my life Essay Order Now

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I hope this essay sample has helped you understand my life. This sample essay on personal narrative could be used by the students for writing their essay assignments. You can also get a freshly written essay on the story of my life from Students Assignment Help.

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Turning a Journal Entry Into a Personal Essay

Your journal can be a great resource for personal writing for publication

Although for many people a journal is something that contains thoughts, ideas, and feelings that will never be shared with others, for some people, a journal can serve as a resource for future writing projects. Ralph Waldo Emerson called his journal his “savings bank” — a library he could reference when he needed an idea for a new piece of writing.

For writers who are interested in writing personal essays for publication, a journal is an invaluable resource. Since a journal often contains your contemporaneous thoughts, it can help you navigate the truth in what you were feeling in the moment. Journaling also gets us into the habit of using the written word to express our thoughts, fears, and feelings, which is a necessary skill for personal essay writing.

There can be some traps for personal essay writers when it comes to journals, though. Mainly: you sit down to read through an old journal entry and you think, “Hey, this is pretty good. Maybe I’ll just publish it like this.”

More times than not, publishing a journal entry as-is is not the way to go. Below, you’ll find some tips on what you should consider if you are ready to take something from your journal and turn it into a personal essay, either to publish on your own blog or to submit for publication in a literary journal or magazine.

Think about structure

One of the best things about writing in a journal is that we don’t have to worry about structure. For an essay, though, we do need to think about structure. Although a personal essay is perhaps less structured than an academic one, we still need to draw the reader in, establish what it is we’re going to be exploring, and we should ideally have both a climax and a resolution that sums up what we learned through the experience detailed in the essay.

Sometimes, the structure an essay will require will not mean laying out the events as they happened chronologically in real life. It’s possible your journal might. Creating an outline may help you to extract the details you need from the journal in a way that will best serve the essay.

Borrow phrasing from yourself

When we write in our journals, we’re typically writing in a way that is unfiltered and pure. Some of the best writing lies in phrases that were not prepared for an audience, because when we wrote them, we weren’t worrying about how they would be perceived, but rather how they represented what we were truly experiencing or feeling at the time. Our journals are chock full of these pure phrases. Though it may not make sense to directly transcribe your journal entry into an essay, it definitely makes sense to pay attention to some of the phrasing you created in your private writing, and use it where effective.

Poetic licence

Though the personal essay is a non-fiction form of writing, sometimes we need to condense timelines or reduce minutia when preparing to relay an experience to a wider audience. When we’re using our journals as resources, we will sometimes come across details that had otherwise slipped our minds but, because they’re in the journal, are brought to the forefront of our memories. Just because something was included in your journal doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a detail that is required for a reader to understand your story in your essay. Choose your details wisely. Just like how in fiction writing most details should move the story along, in non-fiction writing, most details should have relevance to the ultimate topic we are exploring. This isn’t necessarily true when we’re just writing in our journals. Be choosy about what details you extract.

Be True to Yourself

The number one authority on you is, well, you. When we are writing personal essays from memory, sometimes we mix perspective, grudges, and time into the original ingredients, which in turn creates a retelling of something that is not as accurate as it could be. A journal affords us the opportunity to visit with, in a sense, our former self — the person who was experiencing something in the moment and was reflecting about it right there and then, before time, perspective, and other things had had time to meddle. Though sometimes it can be hard, it is at the very least a good exercise (if not good practice) to use those impressions to describe what you were going through at the time, rather than to let your current perspective color your descriptions. This is where journaling can help the personal essay writer the most.

We hope that as you navigate your journaling practice and your work as an essayist, you’ll find that they will be beneficial to one another. Your journal is, much like Emerson said, a savings bank for your future writerly self — it is chock full of ideas, emotions, and notions. Happy writing!

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Lauren Harkawik

Lauren Harkawik is a journalist, essayist, and fiction writer based in Vermont. You can read her writing on her website.

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18 Inspiring Journal Examples About Daily Life

Whether you’re just getting into journaling or you have a consistent practice, finding inspiring prompts that encourage reflection in your daily life can be difficult. Oftentimes when journaling it can be a struggle to figure out what to write about, and what will evoke the most thought and growth possible.

Some of the best example journal prompts about daily life include taking note of what you are grateful for, recalling dreams that have stood out to you, or even writing out a budget. There is a huge range of journal examples about daily life that are worth putting additional thought into. 

Since it can be tough to find journal examples that inspire and elicit thought, this article will walk through 18 prompt suggestions that are worth jumping into! These topics can be used every day, regardless of what stage in your life you are in or your background as they encourage you to think more in depth about your own life and experiences.

Getting Inspired

A common reason many people do not journal frequently or consistently is due to a lack of inspiration. Since it is common to be at a loss as to what to write about, it can be helpful to look to inspiration wherever you can find it! Whatever it is in your daily life that inspires you or interests you, is a great place to start in your journaling practice.

This can help you develop more consistency and desire to write. In addition, a great way to get inspired and make journaling a habit is to write in a stream of consciousness. This means simply writing what comes to your mind as you sit down to journal. Whatever comes across your mind, put it down on paper.

Writing in this method can be very interesting to read back to see how your thoughts develop overtime as you write. You will be documenting the way your brain thinks and the topics that circulate through your consciousness as you are journaling. However, for some these methods are ineffective and turning to prescribed journal prompts is more helpful for stimulating creativity.

In that case, this article will provide you with 18 topic examples to jump into whenever you find yourself searching for a topic to write about. By keeping journal prompts relevant to daily life you will find that you feel more creative thinking patterns and have more material to write about as you base your journaling off of your experiences throughout your life.

Gratitude Journaling

One of the most common forms of journaling is the gratitude journal . Not only does this appeal to anyone and everyone, but it reminds you to look at the positives in your life and recognize what you are most grateful for in your life. This could look like a list, or paragraphs about the great things that you have in your life.

This is an especially powerful form of writing on days when you feel down as it will remind you to think positively and look on the bright side. Oftentimes people will practice gratitude journaling daily as a self-care practice as it can set the tone for a positive day or a happy night's sleep.

By implementing this into your journaling routine you may not only feel uplifted, but you will find that this is a journal prompt example that can be used as often as you’d like! Whenever you are running out of ideas to write about, you can always come back to your gratitude journal for a quick journaling session.

Dream Journaling

Another popular form of journaling is to keep a dream journal. The only catch here is that in order to keep a dream journal, you must remember your dreams. For those who dream vividly or can remember their dreams right after waking up, get into the practice of writing them down first thing in the morning.

This can be a fun start to the day and get your creative juices flowing from the moment you wake up. Dream journaling can not only give you a look into your subconscious mind but can also be analyzed further for any hidden dream meanings. This can turn into a very interesting journal idea as you can look for patterns over time.

Once you have consistently written your dreams out for a while, read back through each day to see if any dreams or themes are reoccurring. Is there an animal or symbol that comes into your dreams frequently? Take this as an opportunity to do some research into what that might mean. This can get you more in touch with your subconscious.

Bucket List

We all have lists we’ve made in our brains of things we’d like to do in our lifetime. Why not use this as a journal idea? Rather than keeping your bucket list in your head, put it on paper so that you can add to it and turn to it whenever you’re looking for a new adventure! This will ensure you never forget anything on your list and that you can turn to it whenever.

This is a journal example that can keep coming back as you will constantly be adding to and taking away from your bucket list as you go through life. Creating a bucket list on paper will also encourage you to go out and do more of the activities you are interested in! When they are written out in front of you it is more of a push to go out there and complete the tasks.

If you keep your list to yourself in your head, you will never have gentle reminders to go out there and do the things you want to do before you die.

I’ve Been Meaning to…

A great journal prompt is to make an “I’ve been meaning to” list. This is different from a bucket list as it is more of a short-term list rather than a list of things to do before you die. On your I’ve been meaning to list you should include anything that may be constantly slipping your mind. Maybe you’ve been meaning to go shopping for a specific item but can never remember to.

This list will not only serve as a reminder, it will spark your thought and creativity and push you to think of other things that may have slipped your mind. This is something you could do weekly to hold yourself accountable to get all your errands or tasks finished. A great place to start is to make an I’ve been meaning to list for the upcoming weekend.

Once the weekend comes if you do not have any plans, open up your list and get started on the activities that you’ve been meaning to complete. This will leave you feeling accomplished and leave room for next week’s list!

Goal Setting

A huge part of achieving your wildest dreams is goal setting. It is extremely powerful to write your goals out with pen and paper rather than keeping them in your mind. By writing out your lifelong goals, your goals for the year, or even your goals for the upcoming week, you will work harder for them.

This journal will serve as a constant reminder of your purpose and goal. This will hold you accountable if you ever sway from your goal or will be a marker for you to compare to as your path shifts overtime. If you are very goal-oriented, maybe writing a weekly journal covering your goals for the week will be helpful for productivity.

If you do not want to write out your goals that frequently, it can be helpful to write them out once every few months to compare how your verbiage and overall goals have changed with your added life experience. Getting clear on your goals whether it be in career, relationship, or personal matters is important in making actionable steps to achieving those goals.

While budgeting is often a topic people do not like to think or talk about, it is critical to your daily life to think about your budget. Therefore, a great journal idea is setting and updating your budget. This could be a yearly, monthly, or weekly budget to keep you on track and aware of what needs to be paid when.

This can even be reminders to pay certain bills or an organized list of what needs to be paid when so that you never find yourself forgetting to pay any of your upcoming bills. Budgeting is critical for people of all ages and can be less daunting if you think about it thoroughly to ensure you are on track.

Those who put off their budgeting often come across more stress when it comes to money because they are unclear on how much they can spend in certain periods of time. By writing out your budget in your journal, you will find yourself becoming more confident with your money and saving more than you have previously due to yourself set guidelines.

Life Inventory

Engaging in a life inventory every once in a while can be very helpful to identify how you are feeling and where you could use more work in your life. This may look like asking yourself truthfully how you are feeling and what is causing any stress or negative emotion in your life. Or maybe that’s looking at what is causing your happiness and excitement for life.

By taking inventory of your emotions, you can better track your mood shifts and how you are feeling on any given day. This can help you identify causes of stress, unhappiness, as well as what fills you up and makes you excited to get out of bed in the morning! Consider your life balance and how it could either improve or be adjusted.

What is your work-life balance? What about the amount of time and energy you put into your relationships? This is a great time to take a deeper look at the way you are balancing and prioritizing things in your life to assess if anything needs to be altered or if you are in a good place overall.

Be honest with yourself about places you’d like to see changes and check back on your life inventory journals to see if you were able to adjust the things you’ve mentioned in the past. By continuously journaling your life inventory you will feel like your life is constantly improving and like you are in full control of the changes coming about in your life.

Inspiration

Who is your inspiration in your life, career, or relationships? Take note of who you admire in life, who you’d like to model your life after, and who has taken a path similar to yours that you respect. Take some time to write about the people, places, or things that inspire you to be the best version of yourself you can be.

Whether you are writing about a celebrity, a place, or an inanimate object, this will inspire you every day and serve as a great journal prompt to turn to when you are in need of some inspiration. In addition, by writing about and thinking more deeply about the people and things that inspire you in life, you will be able to get clear on more of your goals.

The more thought and time you put into topics such as this one, the more you will shape your future, career, or relationships in the most ideal way for you. This will aid you in reaching your goals and leading a life you are proud of and happy to live. This is extremely helpful in boosting your daily life and habits into those that are potentially more productive.

Stress Journaling

A great tool to turn to when you are stressed, overwhelmed, or overrun with negative emotion is journaling. Turning to journaling can help you to release any tension you are feeling and can even help you to solve the dilemma you may be facing. While you are letting your frustrations out onto the paper, your mind is bound to wander towards solutions.

As you turn your overwhelm to the pages in your journal, you may come up with ways to cope with your stress, or things that will aid you in getting through the tough time you are facing. This is a healthy and productive way to face your negative emotions and work through them rather than suppressing them or running away from them.

Next time you are feeling overwhelmed whether it be from work, school, or inter-personal issues, try journaling about your emotions and stressors and take note of how you feel once you’ve got it all out onto paper.

While you are reading, watching a movie, or surfing the web do you ever find a fascinating, thought-provoking or inspiring quote worth writing down? If so, why not use that as an opportunity to journal. Think about why this specific quote has inspired you or led you to feel a certain way.

This can also serve as a great place to store your favorite quotes so that you can easily come back to them when you are looking for some inspiration. Keeping quotes written down and taking time to reflect on them can be therapeutic for so many and provide an incredible journal prompt.

Think about the ways in which the quotes you note relate to your life, how you perceive or define them, and think about the differing points of view others may take on when they hear the exact same quote. The way in which everybody relates to a quote differs greatly and can be an interesting topic to think more about in your journal.

Idea Journaling

Whether you’re an entrepreneur or not, writing down the good ideas you have can help you get ahead in your work and personal life. It is common to have good ideas throughout the day that escape the mind later on. Sometimes it’s while you are at work, exercising, or in the shower; regardless, start keeping an idea journal to keep track of all of your incredible ideas!

This could simply be a list that you can add to every time you come up with an idea that feels like it’s worth executing. By putting your ideas on paper, they are more likely to come to fruition and are less likely to be forgotten about.

Affirmation Journaling

Writing affirmations out in a journal can be a great way to encourage positive uplifting self-talk. Often people use affirmations when they are meditating, or throughout their day as a pick me up. If you find yourself down about a certain aspect in your life or looking to manifest something in particular, writing out affirmations is a great idea!

You could either use your affirmation journal to keep track of your favorite affirmations that you’ve heard in meditations or create your own. Think about the messages you want to be telling yourself in order to bring something better into your life.

A Letter to Yourself

A fun exercise to do in your journal is to write a letter to your younger self or your future self. What advice would you give yourself five years ago? Who do you hope you’ll be in 10 years? This can be an exercise that not only forces you to reflect on how far you’ve come and the goals you have but also to appreciate how you’ve grown as an individual.

This gives you something to reflect on, and something to look back on in the future. Even comparing your letter to yourself year to year you will see some consistency in your life and some areas where you’ve grown and changed. This is especially a great journal example for those who feel as though their life is slow or stagnant.

After doing this journal prompt a few times and comparing you’ll see how much you are growing and how your life changes from year to year.

Even if you do not travel often or far, keeping a journal of your travels will help you remember all of your adventures! From road trips with friends, to international getaways, those who keep a notebook outlining their travel experience are bound to remember the good and bad of each trip and be able to better plan future trips because of it!

You can even use your journal to plan future trips, keep a list of where you hope to go in the future, and any hotels or destinations that you see and want to remember for a future trip to the location. This will keep all of your travel plans in one place so that when the opportunity to travel comes up, you know where you want to go and how you want to execute the vacation.

Tracking your food does not have to be in relation to a diet or calorie counting. For food enthusiasts all over the world, keeping track of restaurants, meals, and recipes is common in order to recreate them at home or note which restaurants are worth frequenting. This could also help you next time you are searching for a recipe to make for a dinner party or a potluck!

This could also be combined with your travel journal as keeping track of your favorite places to drink and eat while you’re on vacation could help you next time you go back to this destination or help others who are traveling there and are looking for recommendations.

Self-Care Ideas

Who doesn’t love a good self-care day? However, sometimes it can be challenging to think up ways to treat yourself when it comes down to it. If you found a spa on the internet, or a great deal on the product you want to treat yourself to, write it out in your journal so you don’t forget. This is a great way to keep track of your future plans and desires.

If you take note of names, brands, and experiences as it pertains to self-care, you will have a place to turn to next time you’re planning a day of pampering for yourself or for a loved one!

A Trip Down Memory Lane

For some it can be difficult to remember experiences long after they’ve occurred. A great exercise for writing is to think of a fond memory, whether it be with your family, in your social life, or in the workplace, and write about it. By writing about the memory you will begin remembering more and more of it and find yourself taking a trip down memory lane.

This is a great writing prompt when you are thinking of a specific person or time in your life that you’d like to reflect on and think fondly of. This is a journal example you can do as often as you want! Your memories are endless, so why not write about them.

Career Planning

This is a great journal example for those who are focused on building up their career, changing industries, or wanting to move their way up in their company. Regardless of your long term goals, it is important to make a plan for how you are going to achieve them. Without a plan, you may miss a promotion or opportunity that you could have taken advantage of.

This may look like writing out your end goal in your career, your ideal position once you have all the experience and knowledge to get there. Then work your way down the ladder. What can you do now to put you ahead of the competition in your industry? Strategizing in this way will give you actionable steps to take to accomplish your goals, rather than leaving it up to others.

You can do this at any point in your life, it’s never too early or too late to plan your future.

Journaling can be tough when you are searching for new prompts to write about. Furthermore, staying consistent in your writing can feel impossible if you do not have the ideas to back your creativity. By starting with these 18 examples about daily life, you can channel all of your creativity into reflecting on aspects of your life rather than thinking up journal examples.

With many of these examples, you could use an entire journal for one prompt. Set aside one whole journal just for writing about career and budgeting, or about your travels and food. This keeps all of your ideas in one place and makes them accessible for when you want to go back and revisit your work.

Remember that while journaling can feel like work when you start out or feel uninspired, by becoming more consistent with your writing you will feel your drive and creativity increase, making it easier for you to sit down every day or every week to write in your journal. The best way to get started is simply to stick with it until it becomes a self-care practice in itself!

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Essay on Journey of My Life

Students are often asked to write an essay on Journey of My Life in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Journey of My Life

Beginning of journey.

My life journey began in a small town. My parents taught me love, respect, and the importance of hard work. They instilled in me the value of education.

Academic Life

School was an exciting place for me. I enjoyed learning new things every day. My teachers played a significant role in shaping my character and intellect.

Life wasn’t always easy. I faced many challenges, but they made me stronger. Each difficulty was a stepping stone towards personal growth.

Future Aspirations

I dream of becoming a scientist. I am working hard to make my dream come true. Life is a journey, and I am excited about the path ahead.

250 Words Essay on Journey of My Life

The early years.

The journey of my life began in a small town, brimming with life and culture. I was a curious child, always eager to learn more about the world around me. This curiosity became the foundation for my lifelong pursuit of knowledge.

Academic Pursuits

As I grew older, my academic interests began to take shape. I was particularly drawn to literature and science, two fields that seemed to offer endless possibilities for exploration. I delved into the works of great authors while simultaneously unraveling the mysteries of the universe.

Overcoming Challenges

However, my journey was not without its challenges. I faced academic hardships, personal losses, and moments of self-doubt. But these trials only served to strengthen my resolve. I learned to view challenges as opportunities for growth and self-improvement.

Life at College

My college years were a time of great personal and intellectual growth. I was exposed to a diverse range of perspectives and ideas, which broadened my worldview and deepened my understanding of various subjects. These experiences shaped me into a more thoughtful and empathetic individual.

Looking Forward

As I embark on the next chapter of my life, I carry with me the lessons I’ve learned and the experiences I’ve gained. I am eager to continue my journey, to learn, grow, and contribute to society in meaningful ways.

In conclusion, the journey of my life has been a rich tapestry of experiences, filled with learning, growth, and resilience. It’s a journey that continues to inspire and shape me, and I look forward to what lies ahead.

500 Words Essay on Journey of My Life

The genesis of my journey.

Life is often compared to a journey, filled with ups and downs, twists and turns. My journey began in a small town, where the essence of community and solidarity was deeply ingrained in me. My parents, both educators, instilled in me the importance of knowledge and the power it holds. They taught me that education is not just about acquiring degrees but about understanding the world around us.

The Pursuit of Knowledge

As I grew older, my thirst for knowledge intensified. I was particularly drawn to the sciences, finding solace in the logic and clarity they provided. I spent countless hours pouring over textbooks, trying to decipher the language of the universe. It was during my high school years that I developed a deep appreciation for physics and its ability to explain the world in such a precise manner. This fascination led me to pursue a degree in Physics at university.

Stepping into Adulthood

University life was a stark contrast to my sheltered upbringing. I was suddenly exposed to a diverse range of ideas, cultures, and perspectives. It was overwhelming, yet exhilarating. I learned to navigate this new world, making mistakes, learning from them, and growing as an individual. I made lifelong friendships, experienced heartbreak, and discovered my passion for research during these transformative years.

Embracing Challenges

Post-university, I faced the harsh realities of adulthood. I struggled to find a job that aligned with my passion and skills. It was a challenging period, filled with self-doubt and uncertainty. However, I held onto the belief that every experience, good or bad, contributes to our growth. I eventually landed a job as a research assistant at a renowned institute. It was a demanding job, but it allowed me to delve deeper into my field of interest.

Continuing the Journey

Looking back, I realize that each stage of my life has been a journey in itself, shaping me into the person I am today. As I continue this journey, I am guided by my passion for knowledge and my desire to contribute positively to the world. I understand that there will be more challenges ahead, but I am ready to face them with courage and determination.

In conclusion, the journey of my life has been a beautiful amalgamation of experiences, each one teaching me invaluable lessons. I believe that life is not about the destination, but the journey itself. It’s about embracing every moment, every experience, and using them to become the best version of ourselves. As I continue on this journey, I look forward to what lies ahead, ready to embrace the unknown with an open mind and a resilient spirit.

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JOURNALING: A personal essay on the benefits of journal writing

Journal writing is an escape to a place without judgment , rules and boundaries. An antidote for those of us who judge ourselves too harshly. It doesn’t matter what paper or ink are used. In fact, the words you write don’t even require a lot of care. Spelling, grammar, wordiness, none of it matters in the moment . What matters is how you feel about what you write. Writing can be therapeutic, exhilarating and peaceful, so write down the things that you find stressful and the things that make you feel completely at peace. The only limits are the ones we place on ourselves. Writing is a place where a person can just be.

It reminds us where we’ve been and provides us with a glimpse of where we’re going. It gives us memories we might otherwise forget. It can gleam hope when we need that extra comfort. What are your hopes for today, tomorrow and always? What challenges are you facing that you need to roll up your pants and wade into? Many thoughts and emotions will fly like a kite, colourful, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. Pick the ones that capture your attention and put them to paper.

Journals are always there when we need them. They’re here just for us, to gather our thoughts, to share our laughter, our tears, frustration and sadness. Words are here for us today, tomorrow and always.

image:  JoelMontes (Creative Commons BY-SA)

Lovely piece on journaling. Well done!

Thanks, as you can tell I am a big fan of journalling. 🙂

I’ve accumulated a lot of 3 ring binders with my journalling over the years. I notice that I tend to write a lot during difficult times and transitions, but less during the good times. As a result, I fear that anyone reading them in the future would get a very distorted impression of my life.

What do I do with all this material? I hate to throw it all out. I’m not likely to reread it. As mentioned above, I’m not at all sure I want to leave them for others to read.

To quote Stephen King in his book, Different Seasons , “The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure …”

It’s the words we write in the difficult times that have the most lessons – not just for us, but for many.

Do you keep all your old journals?

Do you plan for others to ever read them?

They are now spread across my writing. I do not keep journals anymore as journals, I use pieces of my life in my articles so, in effect, others are reading them all the time.

Nice entry. Journal writing for me has always been a way to find and keep my balance.

Me too, I like being able to look back and see how far I have come, what made me smile and laugh.

I agree with every factor that you have pointed out. Journal writing for me is such a wonderful and brilliant it made me happy.

I love journalling. It helps me to clear my mind.

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“Journal of My Life” by J.L. Menetra, Essay Example

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Journal of Jacques -Louis Menetra of My Life is an autobiographical confession , and it is quite remarkable. At first glance, seems like a pretty simple thing: the story of a man’s life, told by himself. But in the days of Menetra was not common for people, especially people of their own relatively lower station to maintain a confessional way. In fact, the text is very lonely in the period in which he lived and wrote, namely 18 to 19 early centuries (Menetra 2-3). Journal of Menetra of my life is actually a simply wonderful document, a memoir rich with accounts of all the peccadilloes and picaresque adventures.

Menetra has encounters with criminals and the authorities, gets into fights, and embarks on sexual adventure . Also covers France, is set to practice the profession of his father glaziers, marries and starts a family, and later engaged in politics . It is a story that is a very nice man. Menetra lived from 1738 until Napoleon’s reign in the 19th century. The context in which he wrote was a truly momentous period for France, covering as it did the time of Louis XV, as seen Napoleon. And yet, Menetra wrote primarily for himself, their struggles, their dreams, their various adventures . Through the eyes of Menetra, a large part of the construction of masculinity in the society of his time is evident. From his involvement in the abbeys of youth after his family life, Menetra participates in a world of gender identification, definition and recreating himself in a dynamic work with the customs of his time.

The document itself is an autobiographical account. Menetra talks about the people she has met along his life, drinking and traveling companions thief who kidnapped him and held him hostage for several days two women (27-43 ). We learn from abusive and violent temper of his father, of his own skepticism of organized religion, Lyons man who wanted to marry the niece of the man. We learned all this and more besides: a rich tapestry of the life of a man. There is a clear text , and it’s introduction and afterword by Daniel Roche. In the introduction, Roche explains the background, putting in its historical context. Menetra witnessed great changes in his long life, including the French Revolution. Its very original voice offers the prospect of a common man, instead of a Marat or Robespierre ( or Napoleon), and in this wise is the most invaluable.

From the beginning, Menetra is just lovely. “My father married and settled at the same time and married a virtuous girl who bore him four children three girls and a boy myself because all your little jokes will write about” ( Menetra 18). As a child, young Menetra was a real bastard. Many of his statements make it clear that was like a kid poultry, he learned at an early age to prevent abusive, violent father and seek the company of others. From his youth he learned to be skeptical of organized religion, seeing how unscrupulous priests took advantage of the credulity and superstition of a large number of people (18 to 20). In the time it would take her First Communion, he says: “I can say that I could not believe that the Son of God allowed men feed like” (22) .

In his youth, ran Menetra abbeys youth , youth gangs in a particular town or neighborhood in a big city (Ruff 161). Its ostensible purpose was to provide some functions, especially the maintenance of the local moral and monitoring of local marriages. They took a great interest in marriages, because they themselves were not married. As such, it focused heavily on the supply of marriageable girls, and they went to no small lengths to control this. Objected to certain parties, and they are felt through their discontent public embarrassment, often through the use of symbolic acts , like blocking the way before the wedding procession of the couple in the church (161). In other cases, their opposition was more insistent noise made ??by performing cacophonous music, pots and pans were beating and abusing cats to produce screaming (161-162).

And in other cases , following Menetra simply engage in violence. ” One day we had a bad fight with the farmers, some of whose skulls got hit on ” we ( 29) says. Using symbolic acts, noisy protests and fighting all the stops, youth claimed some ownership of themselves and their environment. Of course, this was indelibly linked to the evolution of masculinity according to cultural scripts, embedded narratives of patriarchy. Far from an absolute, rigid system, patriarchal customs that determined the nature of masculinity in time Menetra were very clear liquid, as they should be. Thus, although Menetra and his minions can say, in a sense they have been trapped by elements of patriarchy that left little choice but to engage in violent fights occasionally, it is undoubtedly true that if one follows his own account of things Menetra was nothing if not versatile and dynamic in their performance of gender roles when it suited him so (Shepard 76-80).

One particularly disturbing but revealing incident actually sheds much light on this point. Menetra tells how one day, while riding in a small forest with a partner: “I saw a shepherd and shepherd young girl in action” (37). It scared the boy making a noise , and then ” I amused myself with medium girl willingly the rest by force ” (38 ) . Menetra has only admitted his ” middle willingly ” however, who raped a girl. While this type of sexual violence also served as a demonstration of male power and privilege on the bodies of women – especially pastors girls, who were lower class and particularly vulnerable , since working alone in remote areas – which was not the only code by which Menetra measured behavior. He relates that he felt bad , and so ” I retraced my steps and stopped a second time and as I was a good Christian and had heard that a sin was paid forgiven medium gave the girl three coins of two suns and continued in my path “( 38).

A deeply disturbing story , but a revelation for that. What Menetra is effectively saying that the reader is that despite violating shepherd girls can be a sin , is one that can be partially atoned for at least the payment of money. Even the act of payment indicates the act of a penitent thief who returns a value of goods you have taken. So Menetra casual act of sexual violence, and the arrogant way he tries to clear some of their guilt by paying the girl, serves as a microcosm of some of the most fundamental rules of social system he lived .

The performance of masculinity in the days of Menetra also required violence among men for the sake of “honor”. In addition to personal honor, the perceived honor of a woman could be at stake, as well as a contest between men. Menetra relates an anecdote in which he kissed a girl serving at a tavern for a bet. He ” politely asked which granted him permission, ” an indication of the courtesies that could shape the relations between the sexes ( 47-48 ) . However, Menetra tells us , was addressed immediately , to his great surprise, ” a small man with a sword ” (48 ) . What happened next should not be a surprise to anyone who has seen guys fight. ” He gave me a rude shove I did likewise drew his sword disarmed him ” (48 ) . This led to a more general fight, in which – if believed – Menetra wounded three men with swords, and did so without assistance ( 48). The bill smells like bragging, but it also has some ring of truth, thus the credibility of at least the initial confrontation and how Menetra recounts his subsequent misfortunes. He ran from police , was captured, and had to leave the city ( 48).

But what the episode shows is that violence was a recurring part of the life of a man. France in the 18th century was a violent place, perhaps much more violent than contemporary Western societies . In social situations, especially those related to women about who might take some interest in the property, the men had to be prepared to engage in violence for the purposes of competition. Not doing so would be an affront to their masculinity. In some cases, this meant challenging a man who seemed to be growing interest and adoption of a young woman , as was the case with aspiring fighter who stood in the face of Menetra in the bar. As anyone who has witnessed a scene, or close enough in a contemporary setting can attest drinks, the idea does not always declared that the jealous rival who starts the fight has any interest in the property really young . Their motivations can not be naked. Whether or not the vandalism kind of ‘value’ is rewarded , of course , depends on many things , not least whether or not able to make good on their promises and flattery bellicose .

Menetra in time married and had children, but do not give up womanizing for quite some time (204 ) does. He relates that finally slowed his womanizing ways, but his wife , meanwhile , ” was constantly in search and invested on their own and I and my children cheated out of us ” ( 204). Here we see the double fundamental moral Menetra world : his selfish behavior is ” minor indiscretions ” while his is inexcusable for him. Hypocrisy seems more range when you consider how much of a womanizer Menetra was before this, not to mention the fact that he was still doing well in their marriage. The Menetra power as head of household was no absolute way because, after all, his wife went to the back and on your own – you cheated and their children. Therefore, his patriarchal role was challenged and to some extent subverted by his wife as he and other men often were confronted (Harvey 4-5).

The home is supposed to be the domain of man, the place could have their needs met because, after all, worked as hard as he did to support his family (Harvey 5). However, it was anything but a quiet and uncontested space. Since men and women are people with their own temperaments and individual experiences , conflict and renegotiation of the boundaries persisted. In the days of Menetra , one of the most significant events with respect to the roles of the sexes was the emergence of a secular ideology that eclipsed previous ideological foundations of patriarchy based on law, religion and education ( 6-7). On the one hand, women internalized subordination and men internalized Menetra sole . On the other hand , women as wife Menetra undermined him (if you believe) and sometimes flatly overruled .

Such a case was the marriage of his daughter ( Menetra 209) . A pastry -maker, Menetra tells us , he moved to the area and ” cajole my wife knew that loaned money provided to marry my daughter , it was like selling your slave” ( 209) . There are at least two important things to note here . First, a key part of manhood and masculinity was participating in marriage as an owner or investor. How does a man win a wife? Profit is the correct term here . If she was younger and therefore not married, won by (usually ) securing the favor of his father , or in this case to ensure the favor of his mother and to subvert the will of the Father in the matter. The asymmetry is apparent when one considers the situation of the woman in this case : that actually moved like a capital good .

The second thing to note is that Menetra did not like this man at all. “His hypocritical Tartuffe air his ways and his wicked face on which I was not wrong from accepting ” us (209 ) tells . He did not care that the man, who did not agree , but … somehow , his wife got her way , and her daughter was duly married pasta making. The whole thing came to grief , especially the daughter , of course , when accounting improprieties of the bakery – maker met him and his new wife . After they have been reduced to penury , Menetra was able to get his daughter ( 210) . And this may be the most telling vignette of all, because it shows the extent to which women were second-class citizens , and men to their owners, in the days of Menetra . Therefore, to be a man in 18th-century France , its construction, which was to be a member of a caste with power over women as a subordinate caste. This power took the form of a ratio of property, in which men assume control over women that involved a very real kind of property. The violence was linked to this system in the form of an embedded code that required men to turn to him to defend his “honor” and therefore the social position against other men , sometimes with the direct purpose of winning favor of women.

For a historian , Menetra autobiographical confession is absolutely invaluable. This paper demonstrates how a relatively “normal” man and thought in the 18th century France lived. Given the extent to which the stories are often written about , and often to the main movers and shakers in a given society , Menetra text is priceless to the views offered in daily life a person who , despite winning political office for a while, came from humble circumstances and rubbed shoulders ( among other things) the “ordinary” men and women themselves . What Menetra offers the historian is the key to history and to the common man in his time , rather than the works of kings and popes , priests and princes. Moreover, the limitations of the work should also be considered. First, Menetra is writing about his own life , not necessarily the larger historical events. This does not mean that he can not say much about the historian some of these events , example of this terror, but it does mean that you have to offer is limited in this respect . Accounts of his various exploits Menetra may also be prone to a certain amount of embellishment, although the amount is, of course , impossible to say. This is without prejudice again Menetra diary is valuable for what it represents : a testimony of colorful life of a remarkable man.

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Daily Journal: a Day in My Life Essay Example

• Pages: 6 (1417 words)
• Published: May 2, 2017
• Type: Essay

Once out of the gate I started jogging slowly into the nearby park where my friends and I go jogging every morning and on weekends. I had jogged for about half an hour when I met Cindy one of my neighbors, and childhood girlfriend, we said hello to each other, and she joined me. We chatted along as we jogged and an after an hour of exercising and stretching together, we parted ways. I headed home for a shower and breakfast before going to school. I reached the house and left my dog, Max downstairs as I rushed upstairs and took a 10-minute shower.

Later I dressed up into one of my favorite skinny jeans and a flowered blouse; because I was meeting mom after work for coffee to catch up about my life. I took my bag and laptop a

nd headed downstairs where mom had already set the breakfast table; omelet’s and milk for my brother and me. I sat down, took breakfast in a rush, and said bye to everyone as rushed outside because my friend was waiting for me outside to head to school. Once I arrived to the University I rushed to my first lesson of the day, English literature that started at 8 am.

I was eager for this class because I like literature and the professor is exceptionally kind. The lesson was entertaining as we discussed poems on love and recited them with desk mates. At 9. 00am, the lesson ended as fast as it had started. Soon I was in math and later history classes, which lasted 45minutes each before recess at 9. 30. At recess, I went out t

the garden to chat online with my cousin Gladwell, who had moved with her family to Vienna. We chatted for some time before recess was over and I went back for more lessons in Chemistry.

Chemistry was my last class for the day and I did not have to return to school for another two days. By one, I was through with classes, so I called mom to pick me up for coffee. She came at around two and found me at the Library finishing the evening assignment for the day. We headed to town and had coffee with tasty pieces of chocolate cakes until 5. 30pm. We talked about school work. I told mom about my new boyfriend Jack, and she was extremely happy but shocked at the same time.

Before driving home, we passed by the grocery shop and had bought some products for making dinner that evening before driving home. Once home at 6. 30pm mom sent me upstairs to shower and finish up on homework, same to my brother as she made dinner. I cleared both my online homework and my homework for the classes that I take on campus, and at 7. 30, I joined her and my brother at the table for dinner. We prayed, and had the delicious pasta she had made for us with chicken as we shared jokes and laughed. By 8. 0, after eating and clearing up the table, I washed the dishes just in time for prayers at 9pm before we all parted for bed. After that, I went upstairs and got into bed. My Day started as early as five o’clock in the morning, not

that it was my family’s expectation of me, but to me that was my interpretation responsibility in a family unit. Family is a social unit representing people who live together and united by marriage, adoption or birth. My family being a social unit, had unity, because we related to each other by blood.

Responsibility is a key issue to any social unit. Being a teenager, I had to ensure my room was neat before school and walk the dog before being asked to do so. Communication is essential in any social environment: it was not just tradition or the way we did things in the family that brought us together, but those, small things that people ignore like greeting someone in the morning; which I did when I woke up and found my mom downstairs. Jogging, I happened to meet one of my neighbors and friend Cindy.

We related extremely well as friends since childhood, and this interaction is what brought us together. Relating to people around us is what makes us human; we can be termed as social beings. Organization is what describes the role of doing things in a social group; I followed my daily routine of waking up, tidying up, jogging and getting ready for work in an orderly way so that things done in the house and by other family members would not be affected. After jogging, I dressed up to look neat and maintain my image in the community.

Mom had made breakfast for us before we went to school that was her duty to the family, and she expected all of us at the table for breakfast. We took breakfast as an

institution; institutions involved the arrangements done by human beings in interaction with each other and regularly just like we did every morning for breakfast. School was mandatory, and that was another step in life that I had to complete in order to find my place in the community. I rushed to school; a place that gave me identity and gave me with knowledge.

Going to school made me motivated, responsible, and focused and I needed to be a successful individual in my society. School was also not just a learning institution, but it gave me the identity that I was learning in such a recognized and efficient institution where I got to interact with different groups, exchanged and learned new things from my other teachers and the students. On reaching school, the first instinct was to rush to class and prepare for the day lectures.

The anticipation for the literature class related to the liking I had for the teacher: I appreciated her methodology of teaching. A teacher-student connection is extremely valuable for further learning process and depends mostly on teacher’s qualities, abilities and erudition as of a more experienced person. During recess, I went out with my cousin. This friendship based on the fact that we related to each other by blood and so as relatives we communicated regularly exchanging experiences to maintain that relationship.

The two families were parts of the whole through blood relation, in other words extended family. The sociological aspect of an institution not only means a building or place, it also provides institutional imperatives, living formulas like my desire for knowledge, hence my rushed effort of getting to class on time, and

completing my online classes, also my desire for food that made me break for lunch because was hungry. Interaction and peer groups are he social classes that students and teenagers do have when they coexist together just like Alyssa and me; I felt comfortable sitting down with Alyssa during lunch because we were of the same social class, age group and could share thoughts in reality. Language as part of communication is the only way people relate and convey messages to each other in a community. We went and had coffee with her as we bonded and shared personal issues about life. According to culture, a mother should be able to sit down talk with the kids, correct, manage and encourage them to their growth and development.

The understanding, emotional support mom, offered when I told her about Jack was what family is all about. The concept of freedom, openly portrayed when mum supported that relationship and even gave me advice on relationships, displayed the love and faith of a parent and strengthened that relationship. At home in the evening after dinner I had to do the dishes. That was not a commitment, but the role I played in that family when it came to division of labor and responsibilities.

I felt proud of being able to assist mum after a long day at work and appreciate her. Religion is also a concept in sociology as we can see mom is extremely religious, while I went jogging she was listening to a sermon. The same values she did instill, in us that all of us had to be available for prayers before bedtime. She taught us how

to reason and to believe in God and ourselves. In society, I am a teenager who is a daughter, a role model and a young adult eager to socialize and live my life fully.

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The Case for Marrying an Older Man

A woman’s life is all work and little rest. an age gap relationship can help..

In the summer, in the south of France, my husband and I like to play, rather badly, the lottery. We take long, scorching walks to the village — gratuitous beauty, gratuitous heat — kicking up dust and languid debates over how we’d spend such an influx. I purchase scratch-offs, jackpot tickets, scraping the former with euro coins in restaurants too fine for that. I never cash them in, nor do I check the winning numbers. For I already won something like the lotto, with its gifts and its curses, when he married me.

He is ten years older than I am. I chose him on purpose, not by chance. As far as life decisions go, on balance, I recommend it.

When I was 20 and a junior at Harvard College, a series of great ironies began to mock me. I could study all I wanted, prove myself as exceptional as I liked, and still my fiercest advantage remained so universal it deflated my other plans. My youth. The newness of my face and body. Compellingly effortless; cruelly fleeting. I shared it with the average, idle young woman shrugging down the street. The thought, when it descended on me, jolted my perspective, the way a falling leaf can make you look up: I could diligently craft an ideal existence, over years and years of sleepless nights and industry. Or I could just marry it early.

So naturally I began to lug a heavy suitcase of books each Saturday to the Harvard Business School to work on my Nabokov paper. In one cavernous, well-appointed room sat approximately 50 of the planet’s most suitable bachelors. I had high breasts, most of my eggs, plausible deniability when it came to purity, a flush ponytail, a pep in my step that had yet to run out. Apologies to Progress, but older men still desired those things.

I could not understand why my female classmates did not join me, given their intelligence. Each time I reconsidered the project, it struck me as more reasonable. Why ignore our youth when it amounted to a superpower? Why assume the burdens of womanhood, its too-quick-to-vanish upper hand, but not its brief benefits at least? Perhaps it came easier to avoid the topic wholesale than to accept that women really do have a tragically short window of power, and reason enough to take advantage of that fact while they can. As for me, I liked history, Victorian novels, knew of imminent female pitfalls from all the books I’d read: vampiric boyfriends; labor, at the office and in the hospital, expected simultaneously; a decline in status as we aged, like a looming eclipse. I’d have disliked being called calculating, but I had, like all women, a calculator in my head. I thought it silly to ignore its answers when they pointed to an unfairness for which we really ought to have been preparing.

I was competitive by nature, an English-literature student with all the corresponding major ambitions and minor prospects (Great American novel; email job). A little Bovarist , frantic for new places and ideas; to travel here, to travel there, to be in the room where things happened. I resented the callow boys in my class, who lusted after a particular, socially sanctioned type on campus: thin and sexless, emotionally detached and socially connected, the opposite of me. Restless one Saturday night, I slipped on a red dress and snuck into a graduate-school event, coiling an HDMI cord around my wrist as proof of some technical duty. I danced. I drank for free, until one of the organizers asked me to leave. I called and climbed into an Uber. Then I promptly climbed out of it. For there he was, emerging from the revolving doors. Brown eyes, curved lips, immaculate jacket. I went to him, asked him for a cigarette. A date, days later. A second one, where I discovered he was a person, potentially my favorite kind: funny, clear-eyed, brilliant, on intimate terms with the universe.

I used to love men like men love women — that is, not very well, and with a hunger driven only by my own inadequacies. Not him. In those early days, I spoke fondly of my family, stocked the fridge with his favorite pasta, folded his clothes more neatly than I ever have since. I wrote his mother a thank-you note for hosting me in his native France, something befitting a daughter-in-law. It worked; I meant it. After graduation and my fellowship at Oxford, I stayed in Europe for his career and married him at 23.

Of course I just fell in love. Romances have a setting; I had only intervened to place myself well. Mainly, I spotted the precise trouble of being a woman ahead of time, tried to surf it instead of letting it drown me on principle. I had grown bored of discussions of fair and unfair, equal or unequal , and preferred instead to consider a thing called ease.

The reception of a particular age-gap relationship depends on its obviousness. The greater and more visible the difference in years and status between a man and a woman, the more it strikes others as transactional. Transactional thinking in relationships is both as American as it gets and the least kosher subject in the American romantic lexicon. When a 50-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman walk down the street, the questions form themselves inside of you; they make you feel cynical and obscene: How good of a deal is that? Which party is getting the better one? Would I take it? He is older. Income rises with age, so we assume he has money, at least relative to her; at minimum, more connections and experience. She has supple skin. Energy. Sex. Maybe she gets a Birkin. Maybe he gets a baby long after his prime. The sight of their entwined hands throws a lucid light on the calculations each of us makes, in love, to varying degrees of denial. You could get married in the most romantic place in the world, like I did, and you would still have to sign a contract.

Twenty and 30 is not like 30 and 40; some freshness to my features back then, some clumsiness in my bearing, warped our decade, in the eyes of others, to an uncrossable gulf. Perhaps this explains the anger we felt directed at us at the start of our relationship. People seemed to take us very, very personally. I recall a hellish car ride with a friend of his who began to castigate me in the backseat, in tones so low that only I could hear him. He told me, You wanted a rich boyfriend. You chased and snuck into parties . He spared me the insult of gold digger, but he drew, with other words, the outline for it. Most offended were the single older women, my husband’s classmates. They discussed me in the bathroom at parties when I was in the stall. What does he see in her? What do they talk about? They were concerned about me. They wielded their concern like a bludgeon. They paraphrased without meaning to my favorite line from Nabokov’s Lolita : “You took advantage of my disadvantage,” suspecting me of some weakness he in turn mined. It did not disturb them, so much, to consider that all relationships were trades. The trouble was the trade I’d made struck them as a bad one.

The truth is you can fall in love with someone for all sorts of reasons, tiny transactions, pluses and minuses, whose sum is your affection for each other, your loyalty, your commitment. The way someone picks up your favorite croissant. Their habit of listening hard. What they do for you on your anniversary and your reciprocal gesture, wrapped thoughtfully. The serenity they inspire; your happiness, enlivening it. When someone says they feel unappreciated, what they really mean is you’re in debt to them.

When I think of same-age, same-stage relationships, what I tend to picture is a woman who is doing too much for too little.

I’m 27 now, and most women my age have “partners.” These days, girls become partners quite young. A partner is supposed to be a modern answer to the oppression of marriage, the terrible feeling of someone looming over you, head of a household to which you can only ever be the neck. Necks are vulnerable. The problem with a partner, however, is if you’re equal in all things, you compromise in all things. And men are too skilled at taking .

There is a boy out there who knows how to floss because my friend taught him. Now he kisses college girls with fresh breath. A boy married to my friend who doesn’t know how to pack his own suitcase. She “likes to do it for him.” A million boys who know how to touch a woman, who go to therapy because they were pushed, who learned fidelity, boundaries, decency, manners, to use a top sheet and act humanely beneath it, to call their mothers, match colors, bring flowers to a funeral and inhale, exhale in the face of rage, because some girl, some girl we know, some girl they probably don’t speak to and will never, ever credit, took the time to teach him. All while she was working, raising herself, clawing up the cliff-face of adulthood. Hauling him at her own expense.

I find a post on Reddit where five thousand men try to define “ a woman’s touch .” They describe raised flower beds, blankets, photographs of their loved ones, not hers, sprouting on the mantel overnight. Candles, coasters, side tables. Someone remembering to take lint out of the dryer. To give compliments. I wonder what these women are getting back. I imagine them like Cinderella’s mice, scurrying around, their sole proof of life their contributions to a more central character. On occasion I meet a nice couple, who grew up together. They know each other with a fraternalism tender and alien to me.  But I think of all my friends who failed at this, were failed at this, and I think, No, absolutely not, too risky . Riskier, sometimes, than an age gap.

My younger brother is in his early 20s, handsome, successful, but in many ways: an endearing disaster. By his age, I had long since wisened up. He leaves his clothes in the dryer, takes out a single shirt, steams it for three minutes. His towel on the floor, for someone else to retrieve. His lovely, same-age girlfriend is aching to fix these tendencies, among others. She is capable beyond words. Statistically, they will not end up together. He moved into his first place recently, and she, the girlfriend, supplied him with a long, detailed list of things he needed for his apartment: sheets, towels, hangers, a colander, which made me laugh. She picked out his couch. I will bet you anything she will fix his laundry habits, and if so, they will impress the next girl. If they break up, she will never see that couch again, and he will forget its story. I tell her when I visit because I like her, though I get in trouble for it: You shouldn’t do so much for him, not for someone who is not stuck with you, not for any boy, not even for my wonderful brother.

Too much work had left my husband, by 30, jaded and uninspired. He’d burned out — but I could reenchant things. I danced at restaurants when they played a song I liked. I turned grocery shopping into an adventure, pleased by what I provided. Ambitious, hungry, he needed someone smart enough to sustain his interest, but flexible enough in her habits to build them around his hours. I could. I do: read myself occupied, make myself free, materialize beside him when he calls for me. In exchange, I left a lucrative but deadening spreadsheet job to write full-time, without having to live like a writer. I learned to cook, a little, and decorate, somewhat poorly. Mostly I get to read, to walk central London and Miami and think in delicious circles, to work hard, when necessary, for free, and write stories for far less than minimum wage when I tally all the hours I take to write them.

At 20, I had felt daunted by the project of becoming my ideal self, couldn’t imagine doing it in tandem with someone, two raw lumps of clay trying to mold one another and only sullying things worse. I’d go on dates with boys my age and leave with the impression they were telling me not about themselves but some person who didn’t exist yet and on whom I was meant to bet regardless. My husband struck me instead as so finished, formed. Analyzable for compatibility. He bore the traces of other women who’d improved him, small but crucial basics like use a coaster ; listen, don’t give advice. Young egos mellow into patience and generosity.

My husband isn’t my partner. He’s my mentor, my lover, and, only in certain contexts, my friend. I’ll never forget it, how he showed me around our first place like he was introducing me to myself: This is the wine you’ll drink, where you’ll keep your clothes, we vacation here, this is the other language we’ll speak, you’ll learn it, and I did. Adulthood seemed a series of exhausting obligations. But his logistics ran so smoothly that he simply tacked mine on. I moved into his flat, onto his level, drag and drop, cleaner thrice a week, bills automatic. By opting out of partnership in my 20s, I granted myself a kind of compartmentalized, liberating selfishness none of my friends have managed. I am the work in progress, the party we worry about, a surprising dominance. When I searched for my first job, at 21, we combined our efforts, for my sake. He had wisdom to impart, contacts with whom he arranged coffees; we spent an afternoon, laughing, drawing up earnest lists of my pros and cons (highly sociable; sloppy math). Meanwhile, I took calls from a dear friend who had a boyfriend her age. Both savagely ambitious, hyperclose and entwined in each other’s projects. If each was a start-up , the other was the first hire, an intense dedication I found riveting. Yet every time she called me, I hung up with the distinct feeling that too much was happening at the same time: both learning to please a boss; to forge more adult relationships with their families; to pay bills and taxes and hang prints on the wall. Neither had any advice to give and certainly no stability. I pictured a three-legged race, two people tied together and hobbling toward every milestone.

I don’t fool myself. My marriage has its cons. There are only so many times one can say “thank you” — for splendid scenes, fine dinners — before the phrase starts to grate. I live in an apartment whose rent he pays and that shapes the freedom with which I can ever be angry with him. He doesn’t have to hold it over my head. It just floats there, complicating usual shorthands to explain dissatisfaction like, You aren’t being supportive lately . It’s a Frenchism to say, “Take a decision,” and from time to time I joke: from whom? Occasionally I find myself in some fabulous country at some fabulous party and I think what a long way I have traveled, like a lucky cloud, and it is frightening to think of oneself as vapor.

Mostly I worry that if he ever betrayed me and I had to move on, I would survive, but would find in my humor, preferences, the way I make coffee or the bed nothing that he did not teach, change, mold, recompose, stamp with his initials, the way Renaissance painters hid in their paintings their faces among a crowd. I wonder if when they looked at their paintings, they saw their own faces first. But this is the wrong question, if our aim is happiness. Like the other question on which I’m expected to dwell: Who is in charge, the man who drives or the woman who put him there so she could enjoy herself? I sit in the car, in the painting it would have taken me a corporate job and 20 years to paint alone, and my concern over who has the upper hand becomes as distant as the horizon, the one he and I made so wide for me.

To be a woman is to race against the clock, in several ways, until there is nothing left to be but run ragged.

We try to put it off, but it will hit us at some point: that we live in a world in which our power has a different shape from that of men, a different distribution of advantage, ours a funnel and theirs an expanding cone. A woman at 20 rarely has to earn her welcome; a boy at 20 will be turned away at the door. A woman at 30 may find a younger woman has taken her seat; a man at 30 will have invited her. I think back to the women in the bathroom, my husband’s classmates. What was my relationship if not an inconvertible sign of this unfairness? What was I doing, in marrying older, if not endorsing it? I had taken advantage of their disadvantage. I had preempted my own. After all, principled women are meant to defy unfairness, to show some integrity or denial, not plan around it, like I had. These were driven women, successful, beautiful, capable. I merely possessed the one thing they had already lost. In getting ahead of the problem, had I pushed them down? If I hadn’t, would it really have made any difference?

When we decided we wanted to be equal to men, we got on men’s time. We worked when they worked, retired when they retired, had to squeeze pregnancy, children, menopause somewhere impossibly in the margins. I have a friend, in her late 20s, who wears a mood ring; these days it is often red, flickering in the air like a siren when she explains her predicament to me. She has raised her fair share of same-age boyfriends. She has put her head down, worked laboriously alongside them, too. At last she is beginning to reap the dividends, earning the income to finally enjoy herself. But it is now, exactly at this precipice of freedom and pleasure, that a time problem comes closing in. If she would like to have children before 35, she must begin her next profession, motherhood, rather soon, compromising inevitably her original one. The same-age partner, equally unsettled in his career, will take only the minimum time off, she guesses, or else pay some cost which will come back to bite her. Everything unfailingly does. If she freezes her eggs to buy time, the decision and its logistics will burden her singly — and perhaps it will not work. Overlay the years a woman is supposed to establish herself in her career and her fertility window and it’s a perfect, miserable circle. By midlife women report feeling invisible, undervalued; it is a telling cliché, that after all this, some husbands leave for a younger girl. So when is her time, exactly? For leisure, ease, liberty? There is no brand of feminism which achieved female rest. If women’s problem in the ’50s was a paralyzing malaise, now it is that they are too active, too capable, never permitted a vacation they didn’t plan. It’s not that our efforts to have it all were fated for failure. They simply weren’t imaginative enough.

For me, my relationship, with its age gap, has alleviated this rush , permitted me to massage the clock, shift its hands to my benefit. Very soon, we will decide to have children, and I don’t panic over last gasps of fun, because I took so many big breaths of it early: on the holidays of someone who had worked a decade longer than I had, in beautiful places when I was young and beautiful, a symmetry I recommend. If such a thing as maternal energy exists, mine was never depleted. I spent the last nearly seven years supported more than I support and I am still not as old as my husband was when he met me. When I have a child, I will expect more help from him than I would if he were younger, for what does professional tenure earn you if not the right to set more limits on work demands — or, if not, to secure some child care, at the very least? When I return to work after maternal upheaval, he will aid me, as he’s always had, with his ability to put himself aside, as younger men are rarely able.

Above all, the great gift of my marriage is flexibility. A chance to live my life before I become responsible for someone else’s — a lover’s, or a child’s. A chance to write. A chance at a destiny that doesn’t adhere rigidly to the routines and timelines of men, but lends itself instead to roomy accommodation, to the very fluidity Betty Friedan dreamed of in 1963 in The Feminine Mystique , but we’ve largely forgotten: some career or style of life that “permits year-to-year variation — a full-time paid job in one community, part-time in another, exercise of the professional skill in serious volunteer work or a period of study during pregnancy or early motherhood when a full-time job is not feasible.” Some things are just not feasible in our current structures. Somewhere along the way we stopped admitting that, and all we did was make women feel like personal failures. I dream of new structures, a world in which women have entry-level jobs in their 30s; alternate avenues for promotion; corporate ladders with balconies on which they can stand still, have a smoke, take a break, make a baby, enjoy themselves, before they keep climbing. Perhaps men long for this in their own way. Actually I am sure of that.

Once, when we first fell in love, I put my head in his lap on a long car ride; I remember his hands on my face, the sun, the twisting turns of a mountain road, surprising and not surprising us like our romance, and his voice, telling me that it was his biggest regret that I was so young, he feared he would lose me. Last week, we looked back at old photos and agreed we’d given each other our respective best years. Sometimes real equality is not so obvious, sometimes it takes turns, sometimes it takes almost a decade to reveal itself.

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Guest Essay

How the SAT Changed My Life

By Emi Nietfeld

Ms. Nietfeld is the author of the memoir “Acceptance.”

This month, the University of Texas, Austin, joined the wave of selective schools reversing Covid-era test-optional admissions policies, once again requiring applicants to submit ACT or SAT scores.

Many colleges have embraced the test-optional rule under the assumption that it bolsters equity and diversity, since higher scores are correlated with privilege. But it turns out that these policies harmed the teenagers they were supposed to help. Many low-income and minority applicants withheld scores that could have gotten them in, wrongly assuming that their scores were too low, according to an analysis by Dartmouth. More top universities are sure to join the reversal. This is a good thing.

I was one of the disadvantaged youths who are often failed by test-optional policies, striving to get into college while in foster care and homeless. We hear a lot about the efforts of these elite schools to attract diverse student bodies and about debates around the best way to assemble a class. What these conversations overlook is the hope these tests offer students who are in difficult situations.

For many of us, standardized tests provided our one shot to prove our potential, despite the obstacles in our lives or the untidy pasts we had. We found solace in the objectivity of a hard number and a process that — unlike many things in our lives — we could control. I will always feel tenderness toward the Scantron sheets that unlocked higher education and a better life.

Growing up, I fantasized about escaping the chaos of my family for the peace of a grassy quad. Both my parents had mental health issues. My adolescence was its own mess. Over two years I took a dozen psychiatric drugs while attending four different high school programs. At 14, I was sent to a locked facility where my education consisted of work sheets and reading aloud in an on-site classroom. In a life skills class, we learned how to get our G.E.D.s. My college dreams began to seem like delusions.

Then one afternoon a staff member handed me a library copy of “Barron’s Guide to the ACT .” I leafed through the onionskin pages and felt a thunderclap of possibility. I couldn’t go to the bathroom without permission, let alone take Advanced Placement Latin or play water polo or do something else that would impress elite colleges. But I could teach myself the years of math I’d missed while switching schools and improve my life in this one specific way.

After nine months in the institution, I entered foster care. I started my sophomore year at yet another high school, only to have my foster parents shuffle my course load at midyear, when they decided Advanced Placement classes were bad for me. In part because of academic instability like this, only 3 percent to 4 percent of former foster youth get a four-year college degree.

Later I bounced between friends’ sofas and the back seat of my rusty Corolla, using my new-to-me SAT prep book as a pillow. I had no idea when I’d next shower, but I could crack open practice problems and dip into a meditative trance. For those moments, everything was still, the terror of my daily life softened by the fantasy that my efforts might land me in a dorm room of my own, with endless hot water and an extra-long twin bed.

Standardized tests allowed me to look forward, even as every other part of college applications focused on the past. The song and dance of personal statements required me to demonstrate all the obstacles I’d overcome while I was still in the middle of them. When shilling my trauma left me gutted and raw, researching answer elimination strategies was a balm. I could focus on equations and readings, like the scholar I wanted to be, rather than the desperate teenager that I was.

Test-optional policies would have confounded me, but in the 2009-10 admissions cycle, I had to submit my scores; my fellow hopefuls and I were all in this together, slogging through multiple-choice questions until our backs ached and our eyes crossed.

The hope these exams instilled in me wasn’t abstract: It manifested in hundreds of glossy brochures. After I took the PSAT in my junior year, universities that had received my score flooded me with letters urging me to apply. For once, I felt wanted. These marketing materials informed me that the top universities offered generous financial aid that would allow me to attend free. I set my sights higher, despite my guidance counselor’s lack of faith.

When I took the actual SAT, I was ashamed of my score. Had submitting it been optional, I most likely wouldn’t have done it, because I suspected my score was lower than the prep-school applicants I was up against (exactly what Dartmouth found in the analysis that led it to reinstate testing requirements). When you grow up the way I did, it’s difficult to believe that you are ever good enough.

When I got into Harvard, it felt like a miracle splitting my life into a before and after. My exam preparation paid off on campus — it was the only reason I knew geometry or grammar — and it motivated me to tackle new, difficult topics. I majored in computer science, having never written a line of code. Though a career as a software engineer seemed far-fetched, I used my SAT study strategies to prepare for technical interviews (in which you’re given one or more problems to solve) that landed me the stable, lucrative Google job that catapulted me out of financial insecurity.

I’m not the only one who feels affection for these tests. At Harvard, I met other students who saw these exams as the one door they could unlock that opened into a new future. I was lucky that the tests offered me hope all along, that I could cling to the promise that one day I could bubble in a test form and find myself transported into a better life — the one I lead today.

Emi Nietfeld is the author of the memoir “ Acceptance .” Previously, she was a software engineer at Google and Facebook.

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‘There’s a tornado coming!’ Tracing the scars of Louisville’s F4 twister, 50 years later

I went outside and noticed that the light was eerily green and there was strange odor in the air. later, i was to learn it was ozone and dust whipped up by the approaching monster..

On April 3, 1974, an F4 tornado ripped through Louisville, killing two people and injuring more than 200. The tornado also decimated Cherokee Park. For those who lived here, the tornado is one of those "Where were you when…" moments in history. The Courier Journal heard from many community members about what they remember . Here are a few of their stories. These have been edited for length and clarity.

Cherokee park will never be the same

I grew up at 1618 Cherokee Rd.—our house faced the park. We had a terraced backyard with a beech tree that measured 14.5 feet in circumference 6 feet up. We watched the tornado pick it up and lay it down the only way it could without hitting a house. Because of its size and the hard beech wood, it was one of the last trees cleaned up. They had to haul it off on a semi flatbed. I am sure that had the tree not taken the blow, our house would have really suffered. I was amazed at how small it seemed once the trees were down. It had always seemed like an immense forest prior to the tornado. Sadly, The park never was the same to me after that. The trees now have 50 years on them. But it's not the park I remember.

— Elisabeth Patricia Marie, 47119

We donated our clothes to those affected

I was in my basement with my mom, dog and my brother. I was 10. We lived on Rudy Lane which is on the other side of the Watterson Expressway from Northfield subdivision that was all but completely leveled. Later we toured Northfield—of what we could—and Crescent Hill. My mom then unloaded me and my brothers' closets to give clothes through our church Broadway Baptist.

— Paula DeVore, 40207

My DJ dad saved my life. He was my hero.

The day of the tornado, my mom was visiting family out of town. My dad was a DJ on WINN radio. His name is Dick Braun. All of a sudden, he called me from the station while I was cooking dinner for him. Because of his job, he was able to hear about the tornado approaching. He told me to take cover. I thought he was exaggerating, but I followed because he sounded very serious. I went to the basement and watched things fly around me. We lived in the heart of the tornado area on Birchwood Avenue off of Frankfort Avenue.

My dad was a polio survivor and was my hero. The rest of that night he made his way through all the debris. He had to park his car far away because all the streets were blocked. Above all, his main focus was getting home to check on me. He had no way of knowing if I was okay because the phones went out, of course.

I will always think about that night and how he was so worried about me and made his way home as quick as he could. Our neighborhood was a total mess but luckily our house was mostly untouched.

— Jackie Braun, 40204

Horrific sights led to perfectly stacked 2x4s

Me and a friend were parked above the tunnels in Cherokee Park when it went through. I witnessed some horrific sights that afternoon. Golf carts flying through the air, huge old growth trees cartwheeling past our car. We managed to pull “Ralph,” a park worker, into our car after the building he was in imploded around him. After the funnel cloud passed, Ralph pointed to a perfectly stacked pile of 2x4s and told us that the tornado had picked them up and moved them a hundred feet or so without disturbing a single board from its stack. Truly incredible memories.

— John Mathews, 47150

The view from Bardstown Road

At the time, I was the director of a storefront drop-in center at 1578 Bardstown Road where I was accustomed to seeing unusual people behaving unusually. I was not terribly surprised when a boy, about 12 years old, ran in the door yelling, "There's a tornado coming!" I was skeptical, but I went outside and noticed that the light was eerily green and there was strange odor in the air. Later, I was to learn it was ozone and dust whipped up by the approaching monster that affected my sense of smell. And then, the sound. Louder than anything I'd ever experienced, deafening, terrifying.

Directly across the street, a tree, perhaps 30 inches in diameter and 30 feet tall, moved, uprooted, 25 feet north and slammed into a concrete wall in a half second. Utility poles went down instantly, the plate glass windows at the front of the storefront were sucked out into the storm along with everything nearby. Bricks from a neighbors chimney fell through the ceiling and a huge ball of rolled up corrugated roofing fell in the street like a steel jellyroll.

Then, it was gone. We were dazed, disoriented.

"Is anyone hurt?" Surprisingly, no. A quick survey up and down Bardstown road revealed a tangle of cables, wires, splintered wood and people in shock.

My thoughts turned to my wife and infant daughter whom I could not reach by phone. Were they safe? I had to get home, but all the roads were blocked by fallen trees and poles. Eventually, after many attempts, I found a way out and found them on the front steps, scared, but unharmed.

— Timothy (Tim) Franklin, 93908

Friends lost their home, then watched "Hammering Hank" Aaron play ball from my house

I was 14 years old and at home when the tornado hit. Mom had been listening to WHAS radio and knew, it was headed toward Crescent Hill. Thankfully, it missed our house. I had classmates who lived on Stilz Ave just off Frankfort Ave and friends who lived off Lexington Road near Cherokee Park whose homes were destroyed. My friend Rick Haas's home was destroyed. He was a huge Hank Aaron Fan and "Hammering Hank" was one home run away from tying Babe Ruth with 714 home runs. I was happy to be able to provide my friend a place to watch the tying home run on TV the next day, April 4, 1974.

— John Dosker, 40206

The wind pinned the backdoor closed and we were outside

Our home in the Standiford neighborhood bordered the airport, with a backyard view of the southern half of the field.

As the tornado warning was issued my brothers decided to be storm watchers. Propped against the tall hedge separating our yard and the airport was a stepladder that Mark and Joe took turns climbing atop equipped with my dad's binoculars.

They were looking west and saw the tornado form and head toward the Fairgrounds. My sister Mary and I couldn't make up our minds, be outside or in the basement with our mother who was doing her weekly babysitting gig, watching my infant nephew, Andrew.

Mom had her hands full, it was dinner time for Andrew, and she couldn't feed a fussy little one and ride herd over her four teen kids. Mary and I saw Mark and Joe outside so we decided to go out there too, Mom yelling at us to stay inside.

We got out the backdoor. The winds were crazy intense, and I looked up to see rotating clouds above me. I made a beeline for the backdoor. One problem, the winds were so strong, the door was pinned closed.

Mary came over and tried to open the door, a moment of true panic as the two of us tried to pull the door open. We caught a break as the wind subsided for a moment for us to get the door open and head for the safety of the basement.

Our neighborhood was spared any destruction, but it was close enough to see what was done at the Fairgrounds from another vantage point in the neighborhood.

Louisville was very lucky there were not more fatalities as the tornado carved an immense path of destruction across the city and county.

— Daniel Shaughnessy, 40218

The view of the tornado is etched in my memory

The day of the tornado, we had been hearing of conditions being right for one, but dad coached girl's softball for St. Gabriel School and I was his assistant. Dad had the radio on WHAS while we drove over to St. Barnabas for our game—several vehicles to get the girls there. When we arrived, dad had heard there was a tornado spotted and he opted to forfeit the game and head back to Fern Creek with the team.

When we got to Breckenridge Ln and Bardstown Rd, I glanced toward the direction of Louisville and saw the tornado. All the way down Bardstown Rd, as long as I could see it, I looked out the back window to watch it.

Even today, the image of that tornado from the vantage point of Bardstown Rd. and Breckenridge Ln. is etched in my memory.

— Scott Miller, 41056

We were lucky, our neighbors were not

I was 4 years old in 1974 and lived in Audubon Park at the time on Sora Ave. My older brother and I were playing in the basement when the lights went out and the sirens started blaring. The two of us ran upstairs and were met by my parents running downstairs. We sat in our laundry room, watching the trash blow by the one tiny window near ceiling. The sky darkened as the tornado passed over. The tornado sounded like a train going overhead. I believe the whole thing lasted about two minutes, but it seemed much longer.

After the tornado passed, my father went upstairs to check out the damage. We were lucky, only the storm door was missing from the side of the house. The house was untouched. But the rest of our neighborhood was not so lucky. We would come to find out that the houses one block over in both directions were damaged. Apparently, the tornado had jumped over our street.

At the time my brother and I attended Saint Stephen's Grade School. It was less than a mile away from our house. The tornado had removed the entire wall from the end of the building exposing the 3rd and 7th grade classrooms. Bricks and broken boards were scattered everywhere.

I remember a crowd of people assessing the damage. People discussing what would happen next.

The school was closed for a while, I don't recall how long, but the school, just like our neighborhood eventually healed and life returned to normal.

— Doug Huber, 40229

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