"This I believe"

I wrote this paper for my "This I believe" paper for english. Enjoy!

I was eight years old when I finally learned how to ride a bike. It was something that I had been trying to learn for quite some time, for me it was a difficult task. Every time that I got on the bike I would get going and as soon as I thought I had it, the bike would wobble and fall. My four year old brother learned how to ride a bike before I did. My dad would go out and hold the back of the bike for him and tell him what to do. I asked my dad why he wouldn't do that for me, he simply said, "I tried to help you, but you just weren't getting it."

 After that I became determined, practicing hour after hour on my own. When my older brother and his friends noticed how persistent I was, they told me just to give up. They laughed in my face, telling me that my little brother learned how to ride a bike before me and how dumb it made me look. I couldn't stand their comments, so I began to go out early in the morning before they were awake.


A few days of doing this didn't help me very much. I still could not ride my bike. One day I went outside, determined that that would be the day I rode my bike. I got on my sea foam green bike and pushed off. Just as I was beginning to feel the rush of the wind on my face that I had longed so much for, I ran into my arch enemy, the pavement. I fell hard. The sting of the pavement and my failure was overwhelming for my eight year old brain, which had the idea of invincibility firmly planted in it. As I stared at the pavement through my tears, I realized that I had begun to believe what everyone had been saying to me. That I couldn’t do it and I should just give up. When I came to the realization that I was giving in, I stood up and said to myself, “Alexis Marie, you get back on that freaking bike and prove them all wrong.” I got on that bike and to this day have never had to meet with that old enemy of mine.


Life is full of choices. I can give into the weight of the world when it knocks me to the ground, I could wallow in self pity and blame others for my problems and say that it was out of my control. Or I can pick my self up and say, “The world is wrong.” Either way, I am in control of my destiny. This I believe.