How I Have Shown Grit Throughout My Life

The goal of my paper is to explore how I have shown grit throughout my life. As a boy who has grown up with everything in life, I have found myself wondering how I have made it through some of the things that I have been through. I found that my paper is full of personal information, however, I feel like I could share my experience of grit with the reader. I feel that grit is a tool needed to get through life and be successful, have courage and resolve; strength of character.

I believe that grit is something that people have to strive for. Everyone wants it but everyone can’t have it due to the fact of it being such a rare and valuable tool. Life without the grit to live will fade the grit to be successful will fade. As a child, I would always wonder why I was black and not white like the other kids in my class. I was bullied, and had no friends. I hated the color of my skin; I felt as if i did not fit in. My mother would always tell me that the race is not given to the swift but to to he that endure to the end, and dad would always tell me the sae as well. The only time I felt that I was handsome whenever I was surrounded by who had the same energy as me. I hated when my teacher would ask a class question and call on me cause i felt as if all eyes on were on me which they could have cared less but I did. The things I went through everyday would cause me to this weight on my shoulders that was totally unnecessary.

My middle school had to have the the worst ever everyone with there new ways to make me hate myself. There were so many boys that were better looking, so I felt like i ad to do more and more to be noticed. I wore American Eagle, Nike, and other thing of that nature; I wore all the things I knew they would like and accept. Anything that I could hide behind I was hiding. The way people communicated with me, the social interactions I experienced, the amount of happiness, and the embarrassment I wasn’t facing, only forced me to continue to hide my true colors. I loved feeling like this. Sixth grade was the time that I was fed up. I felt like I was such an outsider, people began to see that I was changing my appearance and started to pick on me for it, and it drove me to the point of where I didnt want to fit in anymore or even be apart of life anymore so I took upon myself to one day try to commit suicide. I felt tears rolling down my face, I felt the outside world fading away, I just hung there and cried. Then I felt two arms wrap around me I thought it was God but it was only my p. e. teacher Mrs. Ridley. She asked me what was wrong and I told her that I didn’t like the way I looked and neither did he kids in my class. But what she said next really touched my heart. She went on to say that being beautiful or handsome is not about the outside appearance it is about the inside beauty and she told me that I had an beautiful and kind spirit and that it would help me later on in life get to places I could not imagine. For her to see my inner beauty, made me open eyes to a whole new world. Even though I went through all of this I still pushed through and overcame with help from the Lord.

The next week we came back, I walked in the classroom, and owned it. I did not care what kind of response I would get from my friends, but none of that mattered to me at all. I felt beautiful on the inside and no one could tell me anything different. I told myself repeatedly “This is me; this is who I am, If I don’t love myself, then who will love me”. All of my friends would give strange looks because I came up in there about my business. I walked up to my p. e. teacher and I told her thank you for doing everything in your power to make sure I was okay.

“Me” is what you got when I graduated to high school. I finally started accepting me for me and not caring about what people thought of me. Hearing compliments from my friends made me feel loved, so I wanted to spread that love. But it was not the compliments or the hellos that made me smile it was the fact that I didn't care if they did or not. No one’s opinion about me matter, but hearing that I am beautiful and handsome from my friends brighten up my heart every time they told me. I felt free, I smiled brighter, I laugh louder, loved harder and prayed more as well. But I could not have gotten this far in my life if I did not have grit. My gritty attitude kept me from losing my mind it kept me stable. My goals kept me on the straight and narrow I got better at things and the started figuring out what worked for me.