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Personal Essay To preface this post, I'm a Master Sergeant in the United States Space Force & am likely going to submit this personal essay, as well as many other documents, with an application to become a commissioned officer. After reading it a few times & making some minor revisions, I'm actually pretty proud of it & felt compelled to share it here. I dunno, maybe it will resonate with some of the folks here that can relate. Hope you like it. ​ Title? Imagine the phone rings and you’re suddenly paralyzed with fear. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about this phone call, it’s just an ordinary call like so many others. It doesn’t matter though, your body has already gone into fight-or-flight mode by the time the second ring sounds. Your heart is racing, your breath short and abrupt. It doesn’t make any sense because it would be so *easy* to simply not answer. This horrible feeling could instantly go away through nothing more than inaction on your part. That’s not you though. You don’t run away from your problems. You overcome them. With a deep breath and a feeling of dread you’ve become all too familiar with, you nervously answer. These two paragraphs you just read may sound ridiculous, but they aptly encapsulate one of the defining challenges of my childhood. You see, I had an acutely severe stutter as a child. Severe to the point that the feelings described above were woefully routine for me. Being called on in class, having to introduce myself, engaging in conversation; they all ended the same. Wild spikes of fear and anxiety followed by intense shame. Refusing to be defeated by this invisible enemy, I decided early on in adolescence that I didn’t want to live the rest of my life like this and wouldn’t let this curse define me as a person. In my determination to conquer this thing, I consciously made the decision to go out of my way to engage in dialogue with strangers or talk to a cute girl every chance I could. I quickly learned that being laughed at or made fun of was the worst that could happen. That’s it. I also quickly learned that I was stronger than I thought and could handle it all day, no problem. The more I embraced situations that terrified me, regardless of the outcome, the stronger I became. Whether or not I realized what I was doing at the time, this twisted form of exposure therapy was slowly morphing me into someone I never thought I could be. I was confident. I was okay with myself. After graduating high school, I really didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. All I knew was that I’d come much too far from being that frightened little boy that I could never go back. I never wanted to be him again. So I decided to take a path that scared me more than any other that lay before me. I joined the military. Those first few months were challenging and new, but not in the ways I’d expected. In some areas where others were struggling, I found myself flourishing. In working so hard to overcome my own personal struggles up until that point in my life, I realized I never really tried helping anyone else with theirs. With this newfound realization, I found that I greatly enjoyed developing others, similar to how I’d developed myself. This was never as evident as it was when, years later, I became a Military Training Instructor. Despite the hardships I’d endured in my life, I pushed myself to become someone that transforms others as I’d transformed myself. I feel like my determination to overcome challenges and my desire to help elevate others beyond their perceived limits has been vital in allowing me to enjoy such a successful career thus far. I can only hope that I’m afforded the opportunity to become a commissioned officer and further impact the people around me to be bold and become better versions of themselves. Also, in case you’re wondering…phone calls aren’t so bad anymore.