What is life without aviation? The halt of international trade? A major fracture in war operations? While those things are undeniably important, aviation has had a huge personal impact on my life-an impact that I could recall even before I knew of the significance of aviation in the world. I remember my eighth birthday party vividly, and I was oozing with excitement, hoping that I would receive that one gift I was asking for all year, and sure enough, I got it. It was an Airbus A380 toy airplane and it was my favourite toy growing up; one that I took everywhere. I remember playing with my little brother with our airplanes, and using my new Airbus toy, I would crash them into mud and legos. While I definitely wasn't the best pilot back then, those moments kickstarted my love for aviation and flying. Ive always had a fascination for planes, and the whole world around pilots, and as I grew older, my curiosity grew exponentially. I spent most of my days watching plane takeoff videos and pilots explaining their process of making it to the airlines; and throughout watching these videos I slowly realised that the only thing I wanted to do was fly. I wanted to make a career out of my passion, and I couldn't see myself do anything else. Then the unthinkable happened. My father fell victim to a catastrophic accident at work, where he almost lost his life and became permanently disabled, which flipped my families life upside down; and more personally, mine. Throughout most of my teenage years, I stayed home to take care of my dad, helping him through this hard time, and throughout these years aviation helped me the most. The comfort of being able to know that I might be able to fly, to sit in a cockpit and marvel at the idea of being over 30,000 feet in the air someday helped me feel content with my situation. The dream of flying and the thought of soaring through the air brought me peace and prosperity, which helped me through countless rough days and nights. As my father began to bounce back, he pushed me to turn this passion into a career. As a thank you from my father for taking care of him for all of these years, he bought me an introductory flight for my seventeenth birthday. The impact that flight had on me is difficult to put into words; every time I think of that experience, I feel an indescribile amount of emotions rush my mind. As soon as I touched the controls of that Cessna 172, I was immediately bombarded with an euphoric feeling of excitement and awe; it felt like I belonged in that seat, and ever since then it has been all I can think about. I familiarised myself with the quote by John Hermes Secondari, "Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward.". This quote spoke to me, because I related to it so much; I felt what it was to lose, and what it was to gain. This flight helped me gain so much more than I could realise. Flying and aviation has given me a sense of purpose and direction, and a sense of peace that I don't think I could find anywhere else. The impact that aviation has had on me and will continue to have on my life is amazing, and I would not pick any other passion to follow.