To Surpass or to Not Surpass

Writing isn’t, hasn’t and will never be my forte. I grew up in the shadow of my sister, striving to be as skilled and excel past her rank, gpa and even the now insignificant SAT score. Yet, I recognized I could never match her skills as a writer. It was something she considered an interest, yet something I considered a task. Growing up with a sister who I feared surpassed me in every category, I knew I had to work harder to fulfill the image of her that my parents had shaped for me. 

I owe my outside influences to my fellow peers, family and previous teachers. They have all shaped my education and understanding, whether that be about a serious topic like biblical allusions, or a casual one like ice cream flavors. Shaped to understand when certain situations calls for different forms of proper language, I have been able to carry my speaking, writing and grammar skills fairly well. Some may say even too well, as my friends grunt each time I correct their “your” to “you’re”. Yet I still lack perfection and slip up on my grammar myself. But I strive to keep my voice, one of the most individualistic and personalized factors I own, functioning correctly and hopefully held high to most standards.

            Still today, I acknowledge writing as a task. Though I have the ability to appreciate poetry to some extent, and analytic works to a lesser, writing will never flow from me as easily as it does from my sister. But writing, I know, is still a necessity no matter the profession. However, my plans are based in engineering, rooted by mathematics and shaped by the sciences. The only writing I expect to encounter is through dreaded experimental lab write-ups and long-winded proposals. My goal is to become a virtuoso in the scientific writing field, and a satisfactory student in the figurative and analytical writing field. I hope to view writing papers and essays as an interest, like my sister, rather than a task. Yes, I’ve written in diaries up until age 13, but they consisted of petty complaints about my tiring family, or my ignorant sister who would forget to play monopoly with me. I’ve never seen myself as a person who would share their problems, worries, fears and accomplishments on paper. I never was able to surpass my sister in the writing and literature category, although I did work much harder to fulfill the image of her. However my sister and I have two different images, one in literature and one in the sciences. She enjoys her field of interest, as I still—yes still—see writing as a task.