Emotional Education

  This was my final essay for Composition 1 and I wanted to share it with everyone.  I made a 90 on it, and I'm pretty proud.  The subject is something very meaningful to me. ♥

My Emotional Education

     Like most of my peers, my first responsibility—my first “job”—was focusing on school: studying, reading, and memorizing.  Many of my friends were like me, channeling some of their energy toward fleeting romantic relationships, ever searching for the “right” person.  As I worked apprehensively toward college, my academic education gave way, replaced by my “other” education—my emotional education.  Like David Brooks, Op-Ed Columnist for the New York Times, I feel that “our emotional educations are much more important to our long-term happiness and the quality of our lives” than our scholastic ones. Indeed, the lessons I have learned from this alternative curriculum, as Brooks calls it, my “byproduct(s) of the search for pleasure”, have undeniably altered my path through life.

     A few fleeting years ago, I had the basic insecurity of a teenager, afraid that if I didn’t meet that “special someone”, I might possibly end up spending my adult life alone.  This, in retrospect, was not a mature, realistic approach.  It was my 15-year-old brain reeling from an immature assumption that life emulates the movies—find your true love and live happily ever after.   

     As I got older, I came to the conclusion that a boyfriend wasn’t really needed—this nicety wasn’t a necessity.  I no longer worried about romantic relationships, and began channeling my mental energy toward bettering myself through a traditional education.  I had friends, family, and even pets to support me—I did not need a romantic encounter to feel “complete”.

     My emotional education commenced during summer vacation, 2008.  James was painfully shy, and seemed to reflect my hesitation when it came to the opposite sex.  He spoke to my heart when he played guitar in my friend’s basement, and I sat there and took in the music, attracted to him, but skeptical about this encounter.  Hours later, our entire group attended an inspiring outdoor 4^th of July concert, complete with music, fireworks, and the Gettysburg Address.  Between festivities, James and I spent a whirlwind evening sitting on a patriotic blanket, sipping root beer and holding innumerable, random discussions about life, love, and laughter.  Slowly our emotional walls crumbled, allowing friendship and romance to creep in. Three days later, I found myself back in San Antonio, alone, prepared for the termination of this “summer fling”—distance would probably end this relationship, and I had accepted that reality.

     Since that fateful encounter over two years ago, not a day has gone by that James and I have not spoken.  Tons of frequent flyer miles have accrued between us, and we will once again spend Christmas with his family, returning together to San Antonio for the New Year. Plans are in the offing that, after completing our traditional educations, we will cash in those miles and merge our two lives into one.

     The outcome of my emotional education was unbelievably surprising, not at all the way I assumed it would be. Like Frederick Douglass states in his Narrative, “it was just what I wanted, and I got it at a time when I least expected it” (41).  Indeed, my emotional education has taught me that life is not all about me anymore.  I have learned that life goals are not always planned, not always achieved by following a formula.  I, like Douglass, am “gladdened by the invaluable instruction which, by the merest accident, I (have) gained” (40).

 Works Cited

Brooks, David. “The Other Education.” The New York Times. The New York Times

     Company, 26 Nov. 2009. Web. 2 Dec. 2010.

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.

     New York: Barnes & Noble’s Classics, 2003. Print.