MOLLIE DARMON

   

 

I have come to learn that individuals pride themselves on unique qualities they may hold.  Some find their strength to be the most central attribute, while others find it’s their ability to empathize. I am confident that my capacity to see the light in most situations is the most important quality I possess.

 

I have not always been a positive person. When I mention this personal detail to friends I have met since moving away to college, it commonly will signal the same response, “What? You must be joking. I could never imagine you looking angry...” My less than cheerful perspectives on life were not because I found a slither of enjoyment in viewing the world as a permanently half empty cup of water nor due to a pessimistic household – Papa Darmon is the most positive guy there is.  Viewing the world through a positive lens is a choice, and it was a choice I had chosen not to make for many years of my life. 

 

Sure, there were plenty of unfortunate life circumstances that made the path down negativity lane easy enough to follow.  School was stressful, people were complicated, and life never seemed to go as planned. Negativity felt like a toasty warm quilt I could wrap around my body that heated me up in the middle of a frost bitten winter.  But just as there were adversities then, there are adversities now. School is increasingly more stressful, people have grown to be even more complicated, and I have stopped making plans past a few weeks in advance. My positive outlook was the single factor that had re-shaped my life for the better, and which continues to do so. Mollie Darmon: a positive individual – ah, if only it were that simple.

 

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Writing has been a passion of mine for many years: an opportunity for me to explore the depths of my mind and the complexities of life. I would begin with a pile of mixed emotions and confused perspectives, and through the process of writing somehow organize the insufferable perplexity into relative clarity. Writing was and is still today my choice of self-help. Writing 220, specifically, had been a class I had long-awaited to take and my expectations were in no doubt above average. The small pessimist that had snuck back into my mind at the time of my enrollment due to recent failures and disappointments assured me not to over-anticipate. As such, I waited cautiously for the class to begin. 

 

The pessimist began to shiver when the first day of class arrived.  A large round-ish table to encourage discussion – Check! A professor who began every class with a stimulating, yet rather random question that always seemed to tie up to our discussion by the end of the hour – Check! A syllabus that included three thought-provoking creative writing assignments, which allowed for almost entire artistic control – Check! The positivity was flowing, while the pessimist was left behind in first semester Cognitive Psychology. 

 

Sadly, however, the pessimist may have been a wise and trusted advisor.  Writing 220, with all of the wide-open assignments and freedom, provided me with an extra-full helping of stress with a side of perfectionism driven anxiety.  As every new assignment was released, an initial excitement came along with it, which was followed by a downpour of self-induced pressure to succeed. 

 

The first assignment, ‘Why I Write,’ provided the greatest amount of preliminary enthusiasm.  I discovered a strong passion for writing following an intensely difficult freshman year of college, and since, writing had been a form a catharsis: my own way of dissecting the ins and outs of the world around me.  This assignment was going to be a joy to write – key word: was. It became increasingly difficult to write why I loved to write.  I could easily explain in conversations with fellow students and in office hours; the use of hand gestures and various tones and dialects served to be very useful. When faced with the daunting white screen on my computer, however, my mind instantly went blank.

 

I turned in the initial version of my piece and before I received a grade on it, found myself re-writing the entire thing. I took the time to stop and think about the prompt, my argument, and my real, true reasons for writing – I noticed they did not match up.  I opened a new, blank document and began the journey anew.

 

The second assignment, ‘Repurposing,’ followed a similar development. Upon being given the task to look back at a previous piece of work that we would restructure and continue working on, a light bulb went off in my head – an essay that had elicited interest from both my fellow freshman students and professor. I felt it would be perfect for this assignment – I was painfully mistaken. After weeks of drafting and re-drafting and trying to re-draft again I gave up on the topic. However, the moment I said, “As ta la vista!” I instantly was struck with a new idea. After one hour I had finished the entire essay. Of course, I went on to revise the essay a few times, but the passion for the topic was undeniable and I could feel it as the words were appearing on the screen before me.

 

The final project, ‘Remediation,’ was singular in its process development.  The two previous projects had taught me two things: to be entirely honest with my paper and self before I begin writing, and to strive for true and full passion with each assignment.  Before I committed to any form of project, I waited. I was fully obsessed with the argument from my ‘Repurpose’ assignment and I wanted the ‘Remediation’ project to showcase it effectively. I reached out and listened to suggestions from friends, fellow students, and even family members. Others began work on theirs, even finished theirs, but I continued to wait. It wasn’t until I was able to come up with the final idea alone that I finally began work on my project. The ‘Remediation’ project was the opportunity for me to recognize the experiences that I had throughout the semester with the previous two assignments and use them to my ability. 

 

After completing the first semester of the writing minor, I find that same statement to be true when applied to my perspective on positivity. I need to use experiences I have from my past to aid in my future.  Once I was able to recognize the lessons from my past experiences, as I did from each assignment in gateway, I was able to become a successfully positive individual. Similarly, I will continue to learn how to be a successful writer. Writing 220 came at a time in my life in which I needed to learn an important lesson: Positivity is not simply a one-time choice, but rather a constant choice one has to make and sometimes a constant struggle one has to fight through. Life will inevitably stir up some unexpected challenge for you to face and some days, weeks, even years are harder to face than others.  This past year was particularly difficult for me – my positivity was beaten left and right, shaken to its core.  The positivity I had grown to pride myself on was falling weak beside me, in need of aid.  Writing was my relief of choice; Writing 220 was the platform for my positivity to grow and thrive during a time when I thought it would soon fade away.

 

The assignments I completed in Writing 220 compile into a collection of works that reflect my story. Specifically, they expose my inner thoughts and questions about societal norms and reveal my opinions on confidence and self-esteem, as well as personal anecdotes.  Generally, they showcase my over-arching experience with becoming and remaining a positive individual despite how many times I may re-draft a paper, despite the hardships I am faced with in life, and despite the countless of other reasons it is easier to give up and fall back on negativity.  The Sweetland Center for Writing Minor has already provided me equal insight on my growth as a writer and as an individual – which I am beginning to understand are one in the same – and as Writing 220 comes to an end, I look forward to beginning new discoveries elsewhere.