2.Has there been a time when you’ve had a long-cherished or accepted belief challenged? How did you respond? How did the challenge affect your beliefs?
Studying alone, having lunch alone, and attending PE class alone. That’s how I spent my first month in junior middle school. I barely talked to new classmates if they didn’t talk to me first. It’s been a long time and the only reason that I could remember for my rejection to every connection to new people or school was that I didn’t like the changed environment so I had no expectations for it. Therefore, I believed that it is enough to live on my own. Anyway, it seemed that I felt good to be alone.
Things hadn’t got much better—even if I was not doing anything alone during the rest time in Grade Seven for my desk mate could company me—until another girl walked to me, held my hands and asked me to have lunch with her on a normal noon, and I was shocked. I know her, but how did she know me? Are we familiar? Oh, she is my desk mate’s good friend. But since when were we familiar enough so that she can hold my hands so naturally? I was confused but surprisingly happy. At that moment, I accepted her invitation without any embarrassment or doubt and suddenly realized that I had noticed this girl or even other classmates for a long time and longed for making friends with them. However, what I did was to wait and I was not into loneliness at all. Since then, she came to me everyday during the lunch time and sometimes during recess. This time, I didn’t refuse the opportunity that took me out of my locked lonely world. Her easy-going character not only made us become good friends, but also invited me to a new circle, where I found that I could be very humorous and even chatty in front of friends, that my life had been enriched, and that it was unwise and irrational to reject everything around you or to wait good relationship coming to me.
It is significant for me to find what I truly need and the meaning of being socially connected. It brings me happiness, teaches me how to and how necessary to fit in new environments instead of not letting past go when it’s the time. It is human’s nature that desires to be noticed and valued, while now I discover that I am certainly not an exception.