Enter to Grow in Wisdom

Enter to Grow in Wisdom
Depart to Serve better Thy Country and Thy Kind

우리는 각자가 품고 있는 꿈과 야망을 위해 선택하는 전략이 다르다
물질보다 자신이 찾는 가치를 찾아 열정을 불태우는 곳, 그곳이 바로 일하는 곳이다.


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2005년 07월 16일
박원희-하버드,프린스턴 essay1
Race

Name : Won Hee PARK

The sky looked down at the race track of a small elementary school in the country side. The sun let out its warmth and tiny fragments of sand shined intermittently. I looked ahead, and saw a vast track in front of me. A crowd of people was staring at me, but I didn't know why. Far away, I saw my kindergarten teacher calling out to me.
She beckoned to me further, and I started to run to her. Suddenly, I heard a terrible cacophony of mocking laughter. Puzzled, I tried to get closer to my teacher to be consoled, but she kept moving away from me. It really seemed as if I were to run forever. When I nearly
eached the end of the track, I stopped and started to cry.
Once, when I was half as tall as I am now, I had participated in a race at a village festival. Even though I was too small to take part in athletic activities, the townspeople urged me to race because I was the daughter of the only doctor in the village. So I was put on the track alone, with my teacher coaxing me to run. But before I finished my one-hundred-meter race, I began to sob.
When I was preparing for the standardized exams in high school, I often recalled this bothersome episode from my childhood. As a child, I had run to reach the one-hundred-meter spot, a goal others had set for me. And because I did not have the will to reach the end, I gave up in the middle of the race. Sometimes, taking exam after exam, I felt the same helplessness of not knowing how much further I would have to run. I would sometimes wish I could rest more, instead of constantly reading books about momentum and acceleration.
Once, my advisor challenged my determination to graduate early by asking me, "Why do you want to take the most rugged path to get into the college, when you could take an easier one?" I knew there was truth in his words. However, I declined to take the easier road, because I wanted to test how much I could do in two years. Struggling to achieve what Korea's best students had achieved in less time, I had tested my limits. And in my tight schedule, I managed to take as many AP and SAT tests as our best seniors and still found time to participate in various theater competitions.
I am still racing, but this time, I can see where I am heading. And now, I have almost reached the end of the high school race track, which once seemed to be endless. Even though I have run hard towards this end, I do not feel exhausted. I am no longer a little child, whose finish line was set by others.