Ella+G’s+Final+AmEx+Speech+2017

I am the firstborn in my family, as you can imagine, my parents were full of delight and love as their first child entered this world. There is a distinct love that comes from a parent to their child, it's unconditional. A parent's job is to protect and teach their child as they grow, and my parents were stellar at this. Their ability to allow their first child to learn and explore her own paths was tremendous. I grew up in an environment that was completely open to any unique idea or concept, allowing me to grow into the individual I am. But the person I am, is one who has lived her life in great fear of the world around her. This is not most outward trait, considering that many of you don’t have any idea that most days I have been scared to walk onto this campus, let alone leave my house, but this attribute has shaped many of the decisions i've made in my life. There have been environmental aspects that feed into this ongoing fear, but alongside that comes the nature of who I am. I am naturally cautious and conscientious of my surroundings. This can lead to great social fear. Being born with this can be difficult, but I know that my environment has played a key role in many of the nervous feelings that I have learned to cover up and cope with as I became a mature teenager. At the young age of 6 years old, I was rushed onto a helicopter flying from CMH to UCLA, as my kidneys, liver, and skin were beginning to shut down in order to save my vital organs, in this case, my heart. Later that night I was diagnosed with acute pericarditis, which probably sounds meaningless to most of you. Actually, at the time, it was meaningless to many of my doctors as well, considering that the large number of antibiotics that were flowing through my body for a number of days, were not effective. There was a solid week where even highly educated professionals were just keeping me alive, long enough to allow the many petri dishes to grow the bacteria and determine the medication that could solve this wild disease. Through all of this my parents sat patiently everyday bracing themselves for any news of the progression or improvement in my health. The emotional distress and fear that was brought upon my family and my peers had a lasting effect. Never did they want to hear the words, or imagine going home with one less child. These emotions were strong enough to hold on through my childhood, resulting in an incredibly cushioned environment. Although that extra protection may be good for a short period of time, too much of a good thing can be bad. As many can imagine, the love and care towards me in my recovering months was exponential. They have always loved me, I have always been cared for, but something changed in their unconscious brains. The instinctual protection that one has for their offspring was at skyrocketing levels, and still is to this day. I do not blame my family for this, as I do not believe that they are aware of it, but I do think that it fed into my natural fear of the world. Being cautious and aware is one thing, but having people around you who are feeling the same way towards you is different, and here is where I believe my problem stems from. This invisible box that I forced myself to live inside of has limited me in my ability to live. I will admit that it Is hard for me to stand in front of you and admit that for the majority of my life I have been scared of the world. It's hard for me to admit to myself that I have been living in a world of fear. I have been scared to come to school. I have been scared to travel. I have been scared of loosing my sister. I am scared of people, I am scared of places, and I am scared of things. But this has been ingrained in me, it's my nature feeding off the trauma that I have experienced, and the box I have put myself in. This box was weak when I was born, but as time and trauma and lessons occurred, the walls got stronger and stronger, creating more and more of a barrier for myself to live. This box has held an artistic, explorative, happy and optimistic child in, and forced her to withhold herself from the world. Forced her to say no when the idea of traveling was on the table. Or forced her to spend countless hours worrying about what could have happened, but never did. This box has held me back and held me in. Fear flows through our society like wildfire. From a young age children are taught to be scared of the world around them. To be scared of a stranger or of doing something unknown. I see more often than not that people will make their decisions based on the fear of the what if. This is making a decision based of the fear of the other, which should not be so prevalent. It will happen if it is meant to, and most of the time there is nothing that can be done to prevent those events from occurring. Opportunities have been missed out on because of this wild fear that flows so prevalently through our society. In the America I want to grow old in, I do not want to be held back by the unknown. I want to grow old in a place where fear does not overtake our ability to learn and experience. I want to learn and grow from my experiences, I want to take into consideration that fact that I was minutes away from dying or any other trauma, and turn that around and say, this is why we should get out. People need to not make their decisions based on the fear of what could happen. Fear of diversity, or culture, or just difference needs to be swept away and lives need to be lived. Taking advantage of life is much more important. The America I want to grow old in pushes me to take risks instead of being the reason I am not. I do not want to miss out on any more life because of the constant fear that I am being fed everyday.