Finding Waldo: College Admission Essay Sample

The age-old question. Where is Waldo?

As a young child, I too struggled to find the ever infamous character with the bold yet ridiculously camouflaged striped shirt and mocking grin. I would pore over a page of my Where’s Waldo book for hours of frustrating entertainment, and never find Waldo. However, two days later, I would by chance glance over the page and immediately recognize Waldo’s face staring back at mine amidst the chaotic scene.

I would find Waldo when I least expected to. When I didn’t even try. When I wasn’t looking for him.

Much like with Waldo, several things in life find us, not the other way around. Why is this? Why is it that we constantly obsess and become extremely fixated over something, only to find that by not trying, we achieve exactly that objective? Where is the justice in that?

It’s not that the best things in life come free to us. It’s merely a matter of perspective. If we become so preoccupied with a single goal or dream, we lose sight of all the other things happening around us. Much like Fitzgerald’s Gatsby, who was so fixated on the idea of winning back Daisy and living out his American Dream come true with her, we can disregard completely the consequences of our actions. However, once we step back and stop obsessing over finding that one thing, we’re able to take in the entire scene and appreciate all that we have accomplished along the way.

Although now I have done a bit of growing up, and no longer spend hours searching for Waldo, I still face similar challenges. The demands of high school. The pressure to be the best. The uncertainty of the future. The desire to make my family proud, to do myself justice and to put every single motivational speech I have ever heard into practice and become a successful individual. I have to remind myself to step away from all that. To take a deep breath and relax. Not to take it all too heavily. To do my very best, but to also to enjoy myself along the way. My Waldo is not on a page of a book. He is in real life, every single day. And I must find him.