Little dark room

Little dark room

NOW on my final year in senior high school and inevitably leaving soon, I think about a little dark room in my first year of high school and how it helped me become the person I wanted to be.

About five years ago, when my older sister and I went to the same school, we would be one of the first students in the silent school building every morning. Normally, I would go straight up the stairs and sit outside my classroom while waiting for the rest of my friends. But one day, I noticed that my sister stopped by the school’s chapel before she went up to her classroom and realized that she had always done this.

As a younger sibling would, I followed her inside the then tiny chapel. The lights would be off, the windows would be open, and the room would be covered in heavy silence. While I did my morning prayers in the dark and the heat, I would watch my sister set up the entire chapel by herself. She would turn the lights on, shut the windows, and set the altar—all in preparation for the Holy Mass at 7:30 a.m.

This went on every day.

Sometimes, she would call me from across the room and ask me to help her do simple things, like filling the small basin with water or closing the windows on the other side of the chapel. Over time, I learned to be able to do these things by myself. Before I knew it, my sister had graduated from high school, and I gradually took her place in maintaining the little chapel in the morning and keeping the habit of setting up in the same way that she did, even if I was never told to do so.

Following my sister into that chapel and following in her example made me realize the kind of person that I wanted to be—someone who inspired others to be better and someone who put her beliefs into action.

That realization allowed me to see and to take opportunities to help other people in any way I could. Even in a small school like ours, there was never a shortage of things to do and things to get involved in. I’ve been in many student and school activities since that year, such as being a regular reader in the Holy Mass, an editor of the school’s official newspaper, and even helping head a school organization.

In my first year of high school, I learned that serving others was a choice. I learned that I should strive to be a person that other people needed. I learned that if I wanted positive change to happen, I had to believe in my capability to incite that change and to volunteer my own skills and efforts to ensure it.

When I think about what made me realize my potential to be the person I am today, a student who strives to be socially conscious and proactive, I think about a dark and quiet room being brought to life by just one person and realized that I didn’t have to be asked to step up and serve.

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