Revised Personal Essay

In 4^th grade, I played in my first game of basketball. Our team was so bad it was comical, most of us having only recently begun to learn anything about the game. This comedy was compounded by the fact that every parent in attendance were cheering for our every move as if we had just won the Super Bowl, and I highly doubt that most of the girls even remember the game at all. In fact, most everyone’s biggest concern was the uniforms we wore—borrowed from our school’s middle school girls’ team, and therefore much too large on most of us—several girls spent the whole game rolling and unrolling their shorts so that they would look just right in case the ball ever happened to actually get passed to them. I was determined to win the game, to show everyone that I could be a star, but my uncoordinated efforts fell far short. The final score was lopsidedly in favor of the other team, but no one other than me seemed to care much. I pouted afterwards, mad that the game hadn’t followed the vision in my head,

However, in spite of my inauspicious beginnings, that game was the start of my athletic “career”. I settled into a rhythm of continuous schoolwork and sports, each offering multiple opportunities for my stubbornness and perfectionism to show through. Living in a small town on a tiny island--Lopez Island School District had a population of around 250 students K-12—there wasn’t a huge amount of competition in whatever goals you chose to pursue, whether they were in school, sports, art, or music. From grades 6-12, each year had four seasons in my eyes: volleyball season, basketball season, the end of the school year, and summer.

Fiercely competitive and stubborn, and growing up with parents who pushed me harder and harder to reach expectations that sometimes seemed unattainable, I grew into a perfectionist to the extreme. In some instances, I was literally so internally petrified of the possibility of not reaching the goals in my head that I would simply not be able to complete an assignment; in my mind, not finishing a paper at all was better than finishing it and not doing as well as I had hoped. These unrealistic expectations and twisted logic were as difficult for me to rationalize in my own mind as they were to explain to others, leaving me confused and frustrated.

This internal learning process came to a head after I graduated from high school and made the decision to move halfway across the country and come to Kalamazoo College. A small community, quite similar in many ways to my hometown, Kalamazoo seemed to me to be the perfect place to continue my education, both personally and scholastically. Another benefit of the small student body was that I had the opportunity to play on the junior varsity basketball team, allowing me to continue my relationship with organized athletics. Everything about the school seemed perfect for me, and I thought that I would easily be able to adapt to moving halfway across the country for college.

However, while size of the Kalamazoo College community was small, the amount of talent and competition throughout the school was much more than I had experienced in my experience attending a small town high school. Back home, I had been one of few students who dealt with perfectionism, with many only doing what they had to do to get by, Kalamazoo was entirely populated with people like myself.

While I had expected this transition, it was even more difficult than I could have imagined. Attending a liberal arts institution, and taking classes on subjects that I was often unfamiliar with, I began to feel as if I was surrounded by people who were all smarter than me, and were all having an easier time with this new college experience. While my experience on the JV basketball team was fun, and I still loved the sport, I found myself often sitting in the bench in favor of more experienced players. With my performance seeming to decline, and my confidence faltering, this cycle served to push my perfectionism over the edge, forcing me to come to terms with what I was doing to myself

This revelation made me rethink my entire mindset relating to school, sports, and relationships, and take a closer look at those around me. I had become so frenzied and self-critical that everyone around me seemed to be handling everything perfectly, but a closer look showed me that most everyone had the same problems that I did. Although I still felt out of place at times, this realization showed me that I was just as capable of success in college as everyone else around me was.

Today, in my last quarter at Kalamazoo College, I can look back at my younger self and see how ridiculous my mindset became. When I focused too deeply on my own situation, this left me unable to accept help from those around me. While I definitely do not consider myself cured of the perfectionism and procrastination that has plagued me throughout my life, I believe that Kalamazoo has helped me begin to break the cycle. Rather than simply feeling unaccomplished or inexperienced in comparison to those around me, I have learned to take what I admire in others and attempt to implement those same things in my own life. As much as college has taught me about the world, it has taught me even more about myself.