Where Worlds Converge

College Application Paper

“Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.” Not long ago I would have a hard time doing such.  Persons of inspiration? I was my own; no one affected me, and I affected no other. It wasn’t until I realized the role I could play in the life of another, and the role they could play in mine did this attitude change.

Anyone can open up a magazine or a browser and read all about how the internet is changing the way people communicate and view the world. Only a few, however can attest to how truly profound an impact it has made on their person. For many, the internet solely provides a means of keeping contact with his or her friend across town. It is less an extraordinary new world than a convenient tool. I, on the other hand, have delved into its great spans, and in the most unlikely of places, developed new relationships that were as significant as they were enlightening.  It is on the internet that different worlds converge into one great one that holds the greatest sum of human knowledge and experience in existence.

Imagine me, a polite, well-off, and innocent white suburban male converging with the grim realities of life, all online.  It was there I met Sarah, who lived a life unimaginably different from mine, considering we were both online gamers and beyond that, very similar souls. She loved similar music, activities, games, and had the same sort of values, humor and dreams. From the smallest to the largest we were the same, except for one major aspect: the world we lived in.

Drugs, sex, poverty and crime�"these were foreign words in my life so far away from hers in Manatee County, Florida. Yet there it was all so commonplace that they nearly defined her experiences from the very beginning. She lives off of food stamps; I receive immediately the material goods I require. Her mother is a drug addict, and her father was in prison; my parents are both teachers. She fell into drugs that could have killed her; I’ve never even seen marijuana. How was it then that two similar souls could have lived so far apart from each other? From beyond what I have listed, she has experienced some of the most terrible and crippling events a human can experience, and yet she strives onward.

It was through Sarah that I came to revaluate my own priorities. I would sit there, almost every night, talking to, consoling, and experiencing her and others like her on the World Wide Web. I learned of their struggles, their joys, and most of all: what I could do for them. Now, I breathe for justice, benevolence, and a mind minding others. Everything I do, from my greatest achievement to my simplest action, affects others, and it is by that I learned the meaning of life: making that effect the best it could possibly be.

Author's Note

Only had 500 words to run with