It's a cold September night; just another day of sitting home alone, slowly
losing my sanity at the immense boredom that was coursing through my veins,
trying to write the next great college essay. Yep, could not ask for a more
average night in the life of me. It was at this point that I finally had my
"why not moment” of let's just do something a little out of the ordinary.
Sure I'm seventeen and I have a car, but its 10:30 and of course there’s
the oppressive law against driving after eleven in the state of New Jersey,
so that was out of the question; so out of an impulse decision I bundled up
and decided to go for a walk. About a mile and a few hundred brisk, deep
breathes later I found myself here, lying on a dock that extends out into
the biggest lake in the state. I was lucky though. On my journey, I did not
encounter one car, person, or any other being. I have had complete silence
the entire time; peace and quiet, a wonderful thing. I have been lying here
for a while now, just me and my thoughts with only the soft sound of the
water swaying into the dock. As I lie here, staring at the nighttime clouds
with presence of scattered stars peeking in between, I have begun to truly
find the answer to the question I have been looking for. My epiphany you
could say. What I have realized is that I am not the next Shakespeare. I do
not have the brutal hand-to-hand combat skills of Chuck Norris. I also
definitely cannot hold my own in a one on one basketball game with M.J., or
write a symphony that will change the ages. I also will probably not win
the Nathan's Hotdog Eating Contest or wrestle a shark with my bare hands
off the coast of South Africa, but what my rambling and sudden realization
has brought me too is this; it might not be hard to figure out what I am
not, but the real tough question is figuring out, who am I? Now, as I
ponder my last hour, what I have grasped from this experience is quite
simple. Every day is just another opportunity to learn more about yourself.
Yes, I have been attempting to describe who I am, but if there's one thing
that I just learned it is that who you are cannot be figured out in a short
seventeen years and it definitely cannot be figured out in one night.

Now, I think it's about time to pick myself up, pry my frozen fingers from this
pen and paper and hike back to the pleasant little slice of heaven that I
call home.. or not.