Reaching My Full Potential Essay Example

Exhilaration (and caffeine) rushed through my veins as I shut my laptop after a long editing and formatting session. Unsolicitedly, a smile crept across my face. It was four in the morning, I was exhausted and my eyes were strained. I stretched in relief and caught a glimpse of my right ring finger which looked like - there’s no way to put this tastefully - a butt.

It was an ordinary Sunday evening in the second grade; I was out in my front yard thoroughly engrossed in a Harry Potter book. Moments later, I heard a stray puppy whining outside the gate. Being a huge dog lover, I ran to open the gate and let it in. However, as I swung the gate open, I didn’t realize my right ring finger was stuck in a crevice in the gate. Yank! My finger was split in half, and a river of blood was flowing out. Hot tears gushed down my face as my parents rushed me to a dilapidated hospital in Gurgaon, India. We lived in a rural region of India, which unfortunately meant we didn’t have prodigious access to healthcare, and to make matters worse, most doctors did not work on Sundays.

After frantically running laps around the rundown hospital searching for help, we found a recently hired nurse who tried to assuage the situation. She told us she was inexperienced, but she was familiar with the sine qua non of operating and started preparing for surgery (a terrible idea). But, we were desperate for any sort of help and seeing how I had already lost a tremendous amount of blood on the way to the hospital, we begrudgingly concurred. Slowly but surely, she was able to quell the bleeding, and then she intricately stitched my finger back into one piece. I still have a vivid image of how flummoxed she looked when she successfully pulled off this operation at the end.

Why did she carry on with the surgery if she knew there was a chance of failure? My parents - even though grateful - thought she was barmy. I, on the other hand, deemed her dynamic. Approaching a convoluted sitch head-on takes courage, which is what she displayed by attempting this surgery.

My sutured finger retained the shape of a butt (because of the way she performed the surgery or because of how deep the cut was, I do not know which). I branded this finger as a reminder of compassion and intrepidness. 

Since this nurse quite literally saved my life after my asinine stunt, she patently had a considerable impact on the way I turned out. The way I perceived this incident galvanized my ventures into community service and motivated me to take on challenges I may fail at. Of course, I limit this to pursuits that aren’t life-threatening. I tried to implement the skills such as pragmatic thinking, graphic design, and proactive problem solving and extended them into almost anything I endeavored in. From designing content for a mental health nonprofit to an initiative to teach immigrants and refugees to help them overcome a language barrier and assimilate into American culture, I strive to put my best foot forward even though I might be uncertain of what the outcome will be, in imitation of that nurse. Additionally, I go out of my way to help others, which might be my Achilles’ heel or a great strength of mine, I prefer to believe it is the latter. Immersing myself completely in anything I set out to achieve is scary, no doubt, but that is just how you achieve your goals. 

Every time I look at my butt finger, it compels me to achieve my full potential and help others reach theirs.