Writing a personal essay is like painting a self portrait. You won’t be satisfied with the outcome unless it represents exactly you. It doesn’t mean that the portrait will look exactly like you, but it would rather be a combination of who you are and who you think you are. It will never look complete unless you completely understand yourself.
In his essay, Phillip Lopate states that “The student essayist is torn between two contrasting extremes: A. ‘I am so weird that I could never tell on the page what is really, secretly going on in my mind.’ / B. ‘I am so boring, nothing ever happens to me out of the ordinary, so who would want to read about me?’ “
I used to be torn between these two extremes. I used to think that I don’t have anything to write about; that I’m going to need a life-changing experience in order to write a convincing essay. I also used to believe that no one could understand what I’m going through and no words would ever explain my emotions and beliefs on a level deeper than a superficial one.