This I Believe: Embracing Change

Every year at ESK, eighth grade students share their “This I Believe” essays with their fellow classmates during Chapel. Students are tasked with sharing a life lesson they have learned with the student body. According to the “This I Believe” organization website, students are encouraged to “start by telling a compelling story about how you came to hold an important personal belief—something that guides your daily living.” The talks are based on the “This I Believe” radio show hosted by Edward R. Murrow more than 50 years ago. Students all over the country – and the world – participate in the “This I Believe” project each year. ESK will feature several of these essays, including today’s from eighth grader Bella Fishman.  

When we were all in preschool, teenagers seemed like old and wise idols to us. Now that we are becoming teenagers, people who are only a decade older seem older and wiser, still. As people grow older, they also learn and change to become better versions of themselves. Everyone has had good and bad experiences that turn out to be formative. Although some experiences may seem awful, they still teach us lessons that mold and shape our character that we have today.

When I was younger, I made many impulsive decisions. For example, at after care when I was eight, my friends and I were playing with my gel ice pack; we decided to jump on the ice pack. Consequently, it exploded onto us. The blue liquid drenched our clothes and masked our faces. These unforeseen consequences caused my friends and me to spend the rest of our time cleaning up the awful mess. We were covered in the viscid ice pack gel until our disgusted parents came to take us home. After this experience, I came to the realization that I should consider the horrid consequences of my actions.  This experience made me more cautious.

Too much caution and worrying, however, can can hold you back.  Reticence to change is natural, but that same reticence can prevent us from growing and maturing. Attending a small elementary school made me shy. I had known my elementary school friends since I was in preschool and, therefore, never had to make new friends. I was not prepared for the new environment of middle school. In sixth grade, I barely talked to the people that I sat with at lunch. I could not even raise my hand when I had a question due to my introvertedness. Changing schools after that was monumental because it exposed me to influential people like teachers and new friends who helped influence the person I have become.  Also, it helped me to be a more outgoing and better person. Before ESK, I did not know that I could have close friends who would share their interests in music and sloth memes with me. This change has helped me meet lots of amazing people that have changed my life. Meeting new people has helped me express myself  and become more confident.  In addition,  I matured from this experience, and I believe that it is better to try something new and learn from that than to not try at all.

I had to accept change to become who I am, and who I will be.  When change presents itself, I try to accept it and make it into a positive experience. Changes like going to high school may seem scary and difficult. However, without them you can never learn to become a better person. We will all soon be faced with the daunting task of meeting new people in high school. It is my fervent hope that these new people will expose us to unique interests that will impact our lives forever. We will all leave ESK and high school as a diverse person with unique qualities from all of the remarkable people we have met along the way. When bad change comes like not making it into a sports team, I try to learn a lesson from that misfortune. As George Bernard Shaw once said, “Progress is impossible without change.” Changing school environments made me progress into a new person.

Changing environments is stressful, but they change people, too. Experiences shape people even though some experiences may be torturous at the time; they will still teach you later. Although change and some experiences are scary, they are also inevitable. Once these scary experiences have passed, we learn and the experiences will flourish into beautiful memories. Maybe someday, as adults, we can look forward to becoming wiser–all because we embraced change. This I Believe.