Thursday, October 20, 2011

How I Overcame Having Migraines

I have had to live my childhood as one that has been characterized by my having migraines. I can honestly say that I can’t remember a single school week going by in which I did not have to go visit the school nurse. Yet, I can now say that having migraines has been a blessing in my life because they were an obstacle I had to overcome which helped shaped who I am today.
Because migraines were a factor in my life that I could not control, I had to seek power by strengthening my inner recourses, so that I could find something that I could depend upon. For me that inner strength came from taking care of other people around me. By taking care of them, I felt as if I could take care of myself. I was reaching out to fix things and helping others with their problems.
Doing so helped me to change my perception of feeling frustrated and weak because I had no alternative but to give into the excruciating pain of migraines. I could now perceive of myself as strong as I could handle the responsibility of caring for others. This has given me a strong sense of importance. It has helped me to develop people skills as I play a role that focuses on the needs of other people. I like being of service, and it is why I now have 346 hours of community service. Being helpful makes me feel good about myself. A major factor that defines me is that I have a strong sense of community service and believe that we must give back to the world. I have been involved in a connections program at my school and find it very easy to gain the respect of adults around me. I have also volunteered at a hospital.
One of my all time good moments is when I here someone say, “Ziyad, that’s a great idea. I never would have thought of that.” This has the pleasant effect of making me feel that I can always come up with a better idea, the better plan in getting things done. I take pride in being a quick thinker. I like to get things done. I also feel a keen responsibility for taking charge of things to ensure that everyone does his/her assigned share, and on time.
I believe that I overcame the obstacle of having migraines when I decided I would change my focus. Instead of looking inward at my pain, I looked outward at making other people happier. Having migraines has taught me to have empathy for other people suffering. It has taught me to be humble and to think about the needs of others. It has made me consider management as a major to pursue in college in which I would be working around other people making sure that things get done right. I feel this responsibility is so engrained in me that it has now become my second nature.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Obstacles That Have Shaped Me.

1.) This essay rose to the top to me because of it resembles me the best. Shows the reader what kind of person I am and the obstacles that i have encountered and how I have overcome them.
2.) I think of the strong points in my essay is showing what defines me as a human being.
3.)Probably I need to work on organization and sentence structure.
4.) Is my conclusion powerful enough?

One of my all time good moments is when I here someone say, “Ziyad, that’s a great idea. I never would have thought of that.” this has the pleasant effect of making me feel that I can come up with a better idea, the better plan in getting things done. So I take pride in being a quick thinker. I like to get things done. I also feel a keen responsibility for taking charge of things to ensure that everyone does his/her assigned share, and on time.
A major factor that defines me is that I have a strong sense of community service and believe that we must give back to the world. I have been involved in a connections program at my school and find it very easy to gain the respect of adults around me. This has fed into my feelings of acting responsible for the needs and desires of my entire family. This is not to say that I allow them to take advantage of me being that I am very reliable and have a penchant for getting things done which of course they never fail to try to do. I know when to say no, when I feel that I’m being taken advantage of. Nevertheless, I’m not insensitive to the needs of others.

Part of this sense of responsibility stems from being the older twin and spending my life looking out for my younger brother by 16 minutes. Knowing that I was dependable. I always took responsibility for our welfare at school, outings, school trips, sports, activities or basically anytime we were away from our parents. I feel this responsibility is so engrained in me that it has become a second nature.
I have also had to live my childhood as one that has been characterized by me having had migraines. I can’t remember a school week going by in which I did not go to see the school nurse. Because of this I try to avoid pain or feed with eating food that makes me feel better. I am now working with a fitness trainer to work out and get rid of this bad habit, I’m glad to say that it has been my good fortune, to outgrow these childhood migraines.