Imperfect Bliss by Sandra

Imperfect Bliss by Sandra - January 2017 Scholarship Essay

People habitually fantasize about what they would do with more time, more money, and less work. They create ideas about how to make their lives happier, but these ideas don’t involve anything that is in their current reality. Most people think they would be most blissful on a yacht somewhere with water as blue as the sky where everything is perfect, rather than in their already existing lives. They forget that each and every day can have as much joy and laughter as one in the Caribbean might. This is where I come in. I am a kid, I can’t provide people with dream vacations or million dollar houses, but I can remind them that there is a reason to smile every second, no matter how flawed that second might feel. I can make the people of my community laugh so hard they cry, and smile so much their cheeks burn like a runner’s legs after a marathon. It’s the way I can help, so I do it.
I joined my school’s improvisational comedy team at the end of my junior year. After our very first show a parent of a student approached my group of comedians and said, “The world is brighter with your light”. Such simple words that made me realize that the hour and a half of fun I had just had on a stage was actually making a difference. We weren’t feeding hungry stomachs, or providing shelter to those who are without, but I get to remind people that you don’t have to be living thrills to be living life. I get to show people the humor in day to day imperfections, and remind them that there is joy in each of there. I provide an outlet for people to forget their negative thoughts and in turn an inlet for positive emotions. I spend a little bit of time for the people of my community bettering their day and therefore their life.
Those seven words from that parent have resonated in my mind every day since I heard them, and my will to better people’s lives has grown and flourished from that comment. I joined my city’s youth leadership group that helps teach young people how to go into the world and have a meaningful impact. We do some volunteer work as well as learn. We learn what it means to communicate, and how to protect ourselves and others, we learn how to listen and how to care. We learn how to make the world a better place. I’ve used those skills in aspects of my life already and will continue to do so. I have also learned that good things come in small packages. I’ve seen my neighbors delighted to wake up and find their leaves raked or driveways cleared of snow by a small anonymous elf that runs around and does chores for my community. I’ve seen the gratitude in the face of a homeless man when I gave him the small gift of a simple sandwich and some poorly knitted mittens. He did not care that they were flawed, he was thankful. I’ve tried my best to live up to that parent’s comment, and to be a light that truly makes the world brighter, and I would hope that so far I have succeeded.
I might not be tackling societies biggest issues. I would love to, but there are already many hands on deck for those issues. So, instead I stand alongside 12 other and make an audience laugh. Then I go out into the world and make people smile. I do this as much as I can with the hope that the good deeds will be payed forward, and maybe the snowball effect will take its place, or maybe just one person will realize Cancun is not what they need to love their imperfect life. This is what I can do, so I do it well.