Michelle                                                                                    Expos. Writ. – Ms.Gokturk

Due date: Nov.26^th 2003                                                                   Defn Essay Final Draft

 

 

Achievement: A Two-Way Street

 

             “Swallow it now, or else!” roared my mom, who had finally gone to her wit’s end, after a ferocious verbal battle for the last ten minutes.

             “I can’t!” I replied, almost on the verge of crying, with teary eyes, red-faced and feverish. I stared at the orange plastic cup, filled with water, and the small round tablets that lay next to it on the stand, next to the bed, with loathing. For as long as I could remember, I never could swallow a pill, unless it was grounded to bits.

             Suddenly getting infuriated with myself, I replied out loud, “Fine! You know what? I’ve had enough of this!” I grabbed the cup, took a deep breath, and placed the pill in my mouth. And I swallowed it. Swallowed it! Me, Michelle, the one who could never swallow the hated pill.

             Slowly, a feeling of pride seeped into me. Any person reading this right now would scoff, but at that moment, it seemed like the biggest accomplishment I’d ever fulfilled, making the biggest deal to me. The grand achievement.

A majority of the people envision achievement as this erudite giant, with a golden aura of victory surrounding it, an accolade in hand. Or perhaps, a hero, getting knighted by King Arthur himself, for saving his daughter from the fire-breathing dragon. Or even the more modern example of getting one’s name on the list of people having received the Nobel prize. However, that is not the complete and absolute definition of achievement. Something as negligible as finally learning how to swallow a pill after fifteen years may also be an achievement.

             An achievement gives the connotation of gloriousness and having done something grandiose, and it seems as if a “wow” from other people is necessary for it to be an achievement. It is generally used to describe having successfully accomplished something that an average person would not have dared to embark upon because of the immensity of the venture. Or, it is usually used to describe having accomplished something whose subject matter is of “importance” to the general public’s eye.

 People overlook the fact that everyday, they most probably have made an achievement. They may have finished a paper for school or a slide presentation for next day’s meeting at work. Or they may have simply finished a drawing for art class. So just the “finishing” of something you’ve set out to do may be seen the same as “achieving” what you’ve set out to do, and that even an incidental discovery in something, such as science, may also be considered an achievement. Furthermore, the act of being able to reach a certain state of mind, being able to calm yourself when the other person is just tempting you to flare at them, for example, is an achievement as well.

             The definite things an achievement is not, however, are a failure, a debacle, a defeat, a flop, a washout, a blow off, a shortage, a losing of, or a quitting. Achievement is not, not doing something. There must be some kind of an action, mental or physical. Achievement is not being in the progress of something, but having done something. The act of beginning to do something difficult or something you are reluctant to do, in itself, is not an achievement. Instead, the making up of your mind to do that task is an achievement. Achievement is an accomplishment, an attainment, a success, an actualization, a completion, a conquest, a fulfillment, victory, and even an effort or a realization.

             Achievement discriminates between neither big nor small feats, whether it be of importance or negligible to the general public. (Or even swallowing a tiny pill). In the place of the general public’s opinion, is your heart, the true judge. It alone holds the power to decide if you’ve made an achievement or not.