The edited version...

ON A SEPARATE SHEET, respond to this prompt in one page or two pages (suggested 500 word maximum). As with any writing, consider anecdotal evidence from your experience to support your thesis and viewpoint. Don’t worry about polished prose: get your ideas down honestly and personally.

In what do you believe? How might your talents and personal characteristics work to support you in that belief?

I believe in peace. I believe in the word itself, its phonetic ability to calm nerves and invoke hope. I believe in the weight it has carried across oceans and throughout centuries. I believe in its literal meaning, the opposite of war, the lack of chaos or violence. I believe in its existence, not just in literature, in retrospect, or in a utopian paradigm far beyond the reach of humans, but within the arm span of every person to walk this Earth. I believe that we, as human beings, have the power rhetorically, mentally, and physically to achieve a placid understanding among each other regardless of the situation and despite the resources, or lack thereof, at hand. Men, women and children have stood up for peace with words and numbers. Leaders have risen from the dustiest caverns of humanity, standing among the harshest of enemies and above the most threatening of dissidents, demanding that we find another way. I look back at the most outstanding people of human past and see a glimmer of possibility that we, too, in a world that cynics claim to be tainted by technology and pop culture, can surpass the aggressive norm that we often resort to and rise above the expectations of our generation.

I have become fixated on the potential of peace through both my studies and personal experiences. I am involved in a very random assortment of extracurricular activities on campus and off campus, from the Wake Forest Dance Team and the Board of Investigators and Advisors, a division of the Office of Judicial Affairs at WFU, to a camp counselor at Camp Wayfarer in the Blue Ridge Mountains and a Public Relations Intern for the New York Knickerbockers. Throughout each of these engagements, I have encountered various tests of my will, curiosity, morality, and patience, all of which have given me hope that even the most trivial and biting of quandaries can be solved by taking a step back, surveying the situation, and collaborating with my peers in order to devise the best solution. Yet, beyond my personal experiences outside of the classroom, I find the larger scale arguments for peace that I have encountered through discussions with professors, writing papers, and reading historical documents, to be most compelling. From learning about the oscillation between military regimes and democracy in Latin America in my Latin American Government and Politics class, to analyzing Nelson Mandela’s Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech for my Historical/Critical Research in Communication course, I have witnessed the makings and fruits of peace in the most trying of times in human history. It is these findings, along with the social and academic challenges I face on a daily basis, that motivate me to believe in peace and act as a constant reminder that I, too, one day, may be capable of perpetuating my beliefs into actions that will help me help the world change itself.

In one of his more famous songs, John Lennon begged the world to give peace a chance. Yet, my unwavering faith in the concept of peace reaches far beyond granting it an audition, a chance to be what works. What I believe in, what my talents and personal characteristics have drawn me toward, is the idea that we are capable of giving peace an opportunity: an opportunity to grow from soil corrupted by the gravest of apartheids, an opportunity to withstand the most intimidating of threats, an opportunity to flourish in the most compromising of situations. This is a belief that has taken me a long time to acquire, but one that I hold close to my heart and steadily in my head, unfettered by the seemingly obvious counterarguments on which the modern world has become so reliant. I have always looked to Mahatma Gandhi’s famed quote, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world” for motivation in even the most trivial of situations, regardless of how easy it would be to aggress, lash out, or give up. I know I am young and have many lessons to learn in the future, but I find Gandhi’s words to be enough to convince me that as long as I keep asking questions, begging for answers, and fighting for what I believe in, there will always be that lingering possibility that my confidence in peace could evolve from abstract hope into a beautiful, tangible reality.