Personal Narrative Essay: Recovery From Injury

I ended first semester strong with pretty good grades having done well on all of my finals. Excited to start second semester in my new major, I hoped that finance would be more enjoyable than aerospace engineering. Mentally I was doing far better because the majority of my classes were in person and the covid restrictions were lifted. I had also made a strong habit of working out at the gym every single day. Proud of the gains I had physically, I started substituting rock climbing for lifting weights. On February first I fell while rock climbing and landed from about twelve feet up onto my left outstretched arm. When I hit the ground I felt a pop from my left elbow and I thought I had snapped my arm. As I sat on the ground holding my left arm I became really upset, not from the physical pain because I can handle that, but it was because I knew I had really messed up my elbow and would no longer be able to do the activities that I enjoyed. 

The first month of second semester I was sort of coasting through my classes and not giving any of them very much deep thought.  After I found out how bad my arm really was I became pretty depressed and lost motivation. Every day after that in your class what we were discussing had started to make more and more sense to me. The first few rewirements I brushed off and did them but did not give any thought to why. The first rewirement after my injury was exercise and sleep, personally this was the hardest one for me because I was unable to workout and sleeping was not easy from my pain. The fifth one was meditation and I had always laughed at the thought of it but this time around I decided to seriously try it. Of the books we read the one that resonated with me most was The Art of Happiness In A Troubled World. One paragraph that hit particularly close to home was chapter eleven “Hope, Optimism, and Resilience” specifically the optimism part. When I was first injured I had the victim mentality and the Dalai Lama says “So, we have been talking about how a narrow perspective can increase feelings of hopelessness and other negative emotions, and cause us greater suffering. If we have too much self-involvement, a kind of very narrow self-concern, this can limit us and cause problems, exaggerating our suffering” (Cutler 242). My mentality shifted from a “why did this happen to me” to “what can I make of this poor situation” after reading. The way you think about a topic can change the whole outcome of the situation. For example at first I was really upset that I was no longer able to workout and rock climb, but what I did not realize was that it opened up two or three hours a day for me to study and put forth more effort into my school work. 

Additionally something that helped me deal with depression was the videos that we watched in class and the rewirement actually worked and did bring back some of the relaxed and calm feeling that I had been missing for so long. After the first time I meditated on my own I came to the realization that maybe what I was learning in class would actually make a difference. Another thing that changed the way I was living was the David Goggins video, changing your mindset to one of “I have to wake up and do something today” is something that lifted me out of the depressed phase I was in. Looking in the mirror every morning and thinking about what am I going to change today helped me accomplish my goals way quicker then before. I began to realize that I didn’t even have to complete the task I had set, as long as I did my best to get there I was better off than yesterday. 

Another assignment that really helped bring up my happiness levels was the nature essay. I have always been fond of the earth and for a while was considering an environmental science major. I have spent countless hours outside enjoying the wonders that the earth has supplied to us. However, I can’t recall ever sitting for a long period of time with no distraction, just letting my mind wonder where it wants. Without anything else to think about I was able to make deeper reflections and really become embalmed in the larger and smaller thoughts going through my head. Sitting outside in solitude for an extended period of time was like meditation to me as it brought inner peace.

Lastly one of the activities I thought useful was the VIA and Perma scores. At first I was a little surprised at what my scores were, as they seemed to be a little higher than I thought I would do. Every one of my weeks rewirements was done on the same google doc with the scores at the top of the document so every time I opened it I would be reminded of them. Throughout the semester I managed to improve pretty much all of my scores that were not related to my physical health. The combination of not being able to go to the gym and no fun physical activities really got to me and definitely impacted the scores in the corresponding categories. I improved in the other ones, I would say that by taking this class it directly improved my scores. 

I did not take as much out of your course academically as I did emotionally, but I did learn more about punctuation. The material covered was 100% get out what you put in and the lessons that you structured left students who put in the effort really well off.