The way I plan to make a positive impact in my community is by providing a source of empowerment. Empowerment, as I have come to understand it, is sourced from self-belief. Say, for example, an individual is facing something that challenges them in a way they never have before, but because they have an underlying level of self-belief they refuse to give in. They can look at that challenge and say “I believe in my ability to see this through”. This is empowerment. It is taking any preconceived notion of what one thinks they are capable of, and using their belief in themselves to push beyond it. By this definition, empowerment enables one to believe that there is no limit to their potential and that they can be all they want to be as long as they have the will and belief to do so. This is an understanding that I want for my community and I think this is something that I can do effectively both professionally and personally. Firstly, I’m an anthropology major with a concentration in archaeology and a minor in political science. My goal with this seemingly disjointed set of educational influences is to become a lawyer focused on matters of cultural heritage and ensuring historical artifacts are not only preserved but in the possession of their rightful inheritors. Ensuring that historical artifacts of various cultures are given their due diligence, can imbue the modern descendants of that culture with the self-belief that is crucial for empowerment. Seeing the beauty and greatness that one’s people or culture is capable of through their artifacts, can inspire them to strive to do great things as well. This is a sentiment that I can personally attest to based on my own experience with my Filipino heritage. When I would feel thoughts of self-doubt start to creep in, I would think about my ancestors who lived even harder lives than I did and still fought valiantly for their people. And upon doing this, the ridiculousness of my self-limiting beliefs became apparent and I was able to summon the courage to believe in myself and my abilities. This cultural confidence is a wonderful feeling to have, and with my career aspirations, I want to provide that to others as well. Speaking more personally, what I have found throughout my life so far is that the extent to which people are connected is a lot deeper than most would think. Whenever one chooses to try and improve themselves or their surroundings from a place of honesty, it ripples out to the people in their community as well. The self-belief and subsequent empowerment required to break through the things that prevent them from pursuing these things signals to others that the overcoming of their current limits is possible. While this may sound purely theoretical, it is something that I can attest to experiencing in my own life. Throughout my first year in college, I consistently found myself inspired by the displays of kindness, hard work, and resilience that my newfound friends put forth. All of the limitations that I thought existed in these areas were consistently broken by these great people and it inspired me to cast off my layers of self-doubt and pursue my own goals with the knowledge that they could be reached. Through my pursuit of these goals, I hope to inspire other members of my community to do the same.

In my view, every earnest effort in life will inevitably result in both overcoming obstacles and securing leadership positions of some kind. The result of progress in any realm of human endeavor necessitates determination for growth at the highest level and a degree of mastery high enough to lead others in that field. My experience in matters such as this primarily comes from my time on my high school wrestling team. In regards to overcoming obstacles instead of giving up, because of the very difficult nature of the sport, a great number of instances could be listed, but one story that continues to stick out to me as the greatest example was my performance at a home meet called “Senior Night”. This varsity meet was made specifically to commemorate the senior wrestlers of the program, which meant that they would get priority in deciding who would wrestle that night. Despite the fact that I too was a senior, I was not on the varsity team, so I did not think that I would be wrestling that night. But as it so happened, the varsity wrestler of my weight class was still recovering from sickness at the time of the event, so I had to fill in for the one match he would have had. Going into it I thought that this varsity wrestler I would be facing would be so much better than I was and that I was in for a rough loss. As the match began, I was summarily dunked on my head within the first minute and a half, it seemed as though my doubts were about to be proven true. But as I was in the bottom position, I noticed that none of the techniques my opponent was using were effective at further breaking down my position. In light of this, I realized that there was no reason to mentally hold myself back by believing I was doomed, and I began to fight back. Sure enough, after a few more intense back-and-forth moments, I ended up pinning my opponent in the second period. By virtue of overcoming my obstacles of self-doubt and continuing to push forward, I was able to win the match that I thought I had no chance in and secure both a victory for myself and my team. As far as leadership is concerned, the most prominent example of this in wrestling also came from my senior in the wrestling program, but in a situation that was off the mat instead. Specifically, at one point during the season, our high school hosted a middle school wrestling event. As part of an organized effort of the high school team to help run the event, I volunteered to work at the concession stand. Being that I was the only senior who was consistently present at the stand, I was looked at as a leader and had to coordinate many of the orders and activities of the underclassmen who were also working at the stand. This was especially apparent when it came time to clean up, where I took it upon myself to assign the other team members to check how much of each item we had left in stock to see how much we had sold. Given how busy the event was, this was certainly a challenging experience, but through it, I was able to prove to myself and others that I could lead an effective coordinated effort.

In essence, I think that ensuring that all have a right to state their opinion, and the equality that comes from that, is founded in humility and introspection. To elaborate, the premise for this stance, and thus equality as a whole, relies on believing that one individual is not and cannot be better than another. The best evidence to support a conclusion like this comes from having the humility and self-awareness to analyze oneself and see how one may come to believe that another person is worse than them, is not too dissimilar to the things that they do themselves. An example of this that I have experienced comes from my experience so far in college. As is widely known, university campuses tend always to have a large population of students who enjoy partying. This is something that I found to be very true once I started attending college. I have never enjoyed partying or any of the substances or activities that I knew were to be found at them, and because I continued to do so in college, I let my abstinence from such things provide me with a false sense of superiority over those who did partake in them. I never said it out loud, but whenever I would hear about people partying or something similar, I would internally scoff and give myself a pat on the back for “not being so weak that I needed to run away from my problems by drowning myself in comfort” or something similar. Writing it out now, it seems quite obvious that I had a pretentious attitude about myself, but it wasn’t until my judgment of others was pointed out that I began to notice just how wrong these thought processes were on my end. Yes, these people were seeking escapes through temporary comforts, but so was I. I may not have been partying, but I would spend hours mindlessly scrolling on my phone instead of doing something more productive. I may not have been drinking or taking substances, but I would eat huge quantities of really unhealthy foods for a similar kind of sensory pleasure. In short, I realized that everyone had negative patterns of behavior and that for me to judge them as if I were on some lofty pedestal would be deeply hypocritical. And through this, I came to understand the deeper complexities of equality. Whether it be in trying to distract oneself from responsibilities, or anything else; none of us can escape our fallible natures, and putting the voices of others at a higher level of importance would be to ignore that. But in addition to being capable of an infinite amount of failings, we are also capable of an infinite amount of good. I saw those individuals that I had looked down upon for partying perform incredible acts of kindness, dedication, and humility that I never thought were possible from anyone, not just them. And it's in the acknowledgment of this potential that everyone should be provided the ability to have a voice. In this way, ensuring that “everyone has a voice” means humbly acknowledging our faults while at the same time recognizing the goodness that all people are capable of.

The main benefit that my love of learning has given me is a necessary shift in perspective on how to approach life. To explain, when I was a child I had a pretty strong aversion to anything challenging. Whether it was in school, sports, or even doing chores, I always had the mindset of trying to do just the bare minimum. I wanted my life to be filled with play and fun, and I couldn't be bothered to do much else. I had aspirations of having things that I thought would help with that, but with the knowledge that they required discipline and sacrifice to achieve, they remained only dreams. A high-paying job, a good-looking body, and useful skills all being things that I wanted, but lacked the mental fortitude to strive for. In retrospect, my lack of this kind of resilience was because I had yet to develop a true love for life. Because what I only loved in life were pleasurable results and not the hardships required to get them, I developed a selfish sense of love towards life and how it worked. I only wanted the things in life that would benefit me and make me feel good and I didn’t have a care in the world for anything that was not exactly that. But of course, those pleasurable results can only come about if you are willing to selflessly sacrifice your comfort and peace of mind to pursue them. To love life then, is to love all of what it has to offer, not just the parts that benefit you. It means unconditionally loving both the hardships and the pleasure. But because I only loved pleasure, I had yet to truly love life in the way that would make me a better person. The first step in deconstructing this immature sense of love came from developing a love for schooling and learning in the academic sense. As I progressed through grade school and classes inevitably got more challenging, I came to understand how struggling and sacrificing for something would give me the pleasurable outcomes I wanted. When I started sacrificing my free time to study more for a test or put more effort into a project, I got the better grades and results that I wanted. By forcing myself through the difficult processes of memorizing and understanding certain things in this way, I was forcing myself to learn and because I did I was able to grow into being a more intellectually capable person. Such a process wasn’t to be limited to school, however. As I started doing things like participating in sports, learning new skills, and putting myself out there for more opportunities, I found that same difficult learning curve in all of them. They all required sacrifices of comforts to find success and derive a more wholesome sense of pleasure from. It is that form of temporary discomfort that I think really is the true meaning of learning. When exposing oneself to something unfamiliar with enough prolonged intensity, an adaptation that allows one to understand it will form. In this way, learning, in any way that's meaningful, is inevitably uncomfortable. And because life itself will never stop being uncomfortable, it will always have new lessons to teach. While this does mean that a truly “pain-free” existence is impossible, it also means that there is no real limit on human potential because of life’s neverending opportunities for learning. Such an understanding is certainly beautiful and endlessly loveable. And it is one that I could not have come to if not for my love of learning.

The way I plan to make a positive impact in my community is by providing a source of empowerment. Empowerment, as I have come to understand it, is sourced from self-belief. Say, for example, an individual is facing something that challenges them in a way they never have before, but because they have an underlying level of self-belief they refuse to give in. They can look at that challenge and say “I believe in my ability to see this through”. This is empowerment. It is taking any preconceived notion of what one thinks they are capable of, and using their belief in themselves to push beyond it. By this definition, empowerment enables one to believe that there is no limit to their potential and that they can be all they want to be as long as they have the will and belief to do so. This is an understanding that I want for my community and I think this is something that I can do effectively both professionally and personally. Firstly, I’m an anthropology major with a concentration in archaeology and a minor in political science. My goal with this seemingly disjointed set of educational influences is to become a lawyer focused on matters of cultural heritage and ensuring historical artifacts are not only preserved but in the possession of their rightful inheritors. Ensuring that historical artifacts of various cultures are given their due diligence, can imbue the modern descendants of that culture with the self-belief that is crucial for empowerment. Seeing the beauty and greatness that one’s people or culture is capable of through their artifacts, can inspire them to strive to do great things as well. This is a sentiment that I can personally attest to based on my own experience with my Filipino heritage. When I would feel thoughts of self-doubt start to creep in, I would think about my ancestors who lived even harder lives than I did and still fought valiantly for their people. And upon doing this, the ridiculousness of my self-limiting beliefs became apparent and I was able to summon the courage to believe in myself and my abilities. This cultural confidence is a wonderful feeling to have, and with my career aspirations, I want to provide that to others as well. Speaking more personally, what I have found throughout my life so far is that the extent to which people are connected is a lot deeper than most would think. Whenever one chooses to try and improve themselves or their surroundings from a place of honesty, it ripples out to the people in their community as well. The self-belief and subsequent empowerment required to break through the things that prevent them from pursuing these things signals to others that the overcoming of their current limits is possible. While this may sound purely theoretical, it is something that I can attest to experiencing in my own life. Throughout my first year in college, I consistently found myself inspired by the displays of kindness, hard work, and resilience that my newfound friends put forth. All of the limitations that I thought existed in these areas were consistently broken by these great people and it inspired me to cast off my layers of self-doubt and pursue my own goals with the knowledge that they could be reached. Through my pursuit of these goals, I hope to inspire other members of my community to do the same.