Essay about Myself

Introduction When I write an essay about myself, I want to focus on a specific point or theme. Let’s be honest, our lives are so full and so many events have shaped us that we could write forever and still not exhaust the topic. But a personal essay should be brief and on point. That’s why the best way to compose a short essay about myself is to first identify some personal likes and dislikes.

Then ask yourself why do I have these? From there, you can develop an outline that really lets you explore your own story. With an essay writing about myself, I want to keep it focused but interesting. To show you how, I’m first going to explain this process in detail, and then I’ll give you an essay about myself example.

Let’s begin! Beginning What comes to mind when you hear the words essay about myself? Do you freeze up? Panic? Run in the opposite direction? Actually, all of these reactions are perfectly understandable. Don’t feel embarrassed. The fact is that most people are not very good at talking or writing about themselves. This is natural. Who would know where to begin? My life is so much more than just words on a page! But still the job must be done.

So how? First off, think about the page itself. It’s a rectangle, with four sides and only so much room for so many lines. Your essay need not convey your whole self. Instead, we’re looking only for one aspect, one dimension, one slice of life that helps us see a side of you. Just enough to fill up that page.

If you like, it may be something about you and your family, something about how time and experience have shaped your worldview, what you studied at school, what awards you’ve won, or even something as mundane as what you do for work, like what you might find in a cover letter for a job application. An essay about myself can be any of these things. It starts, it has middle ground, and it ends. It is simple as that.

How can I start an essay about myself? Some things to know: first, this is an essay about you, so write in the first person. In fact, this is one of the few times in professional or academic writing that it is necessary that you write using “I” instead of the third person perspective. This essay is your perspective, so don’t be afraid to share it. Next, you’ll want to introduce yourself.

Try doing so by starting off with a funny quote, or an idea that is interesting, or some question that you think about and want to discuss. Remember Seinfeld? Each episode would tell its own story, but each one would start off the same way, with Jerry talking about some unique take on life from the stage during his stand-up routine. He’d pose a funny yet mundane question to the audience and then riff on it for a few moments.

This would set the stage for the rest of the show. This can be a good way to start an essay about yourself. Try it! What should I say about myself in an essay? Okay, so that’s how you start. But what do you say? You have to come up with something. A compelling hook like that described above can rope in your reader.

But now you need to deliver a story or bring in some interesting characters or bring to life an important setting or convey a meaningful point of view. Well, to be honest, this is where you have to turn to your own life for material. Surely, there are interesting people in your life who have shaped you. Surely, there is some setting in your life worth discussing for a few pages because it sheds light on an aspect of your life.

Remember, you don’t need to try to capture or distill your whole life in just a few pages. You need instead to just give a slice, a window, a view. How do you introduce yourself in 250 words? This is easy. Once you deliver your hook, you can naturally segue into who you are. You can give identifying info—age, gender, what you do in life for work or school, where you grew up, what you want to be, what your ideals or principles or beliefs are.

All that is fair game for an introduction. What are some examples of personal essays? Some writers are great at writing personal essays. One of them is Stephen King. He is so good at writing in this form, mainly because he comes off as though he were simply speaking to you directly. He does not try to dress up his words or make his thoughts do more than they are capable of doing. There is no awkwardness or shame or fear in his delivery.

He just says what he wants and doesn’t worry about it. That is a great way to approach a personal essay. Another writer who is great in this form is Joan Didion. If you haven’t before, pick up her collection of personal essays in the book Slouching Towards Bethlehem. These are essays she wrote in California in the 1960s and they are quite interesting and refreshing. They are polished and enlightening and represent a high bar for anyone trying to take their essays to the next level.

Here's my example personal essay that I want to share with you now. “Who Am I?” I’ve always been fascinated by time—what is it? How does it keep passing? Why do I stay the same in my mind but everything around me changes, and even I physically change? To be honest, even sometimes my mind and heart change! Really, it feels like everything is in an hour glass moving closer and closer to the hole through which the sands of time fall one by one.

I’m in that hour glass being dragged closer and closer to that hole. What happens when I go through? Will time still exist? What is on the other side? Is it strange that an essay about myself should begin with such questions as these? If you did not know anything about me, you might wonder at my thoughts and perhaps imagine that I was having a nervous breakdown. However, I am actually quite sound in mind and body. To be honest, I am probably not much different from you.

I am a sophomore in college. I have friends and family like anyone else. I have a part-time job. I have likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, fears and hopes. I’m not as tall as I would like to be, nor as athletic as I wish I was. I dress well, eat well, read a lot, and watch a lot.

Yet, I wonder about the big ideas in life like, what is it all about? Why are we here? Where am I going? Maybe it would help if I explained more about where I come from. I live in a small suburban town outside a mid-size metro area. The home I grew up in is the only one I’ve ever known. I’m familiar with all its walls and floors and cracks and odds and ends. I see it every day.

I see my old trophies from when I played ball as a kid. I see my new trophies (like my car that I bought with savings from my job). I see my yard where trees have grown, and I see the spots where trees once stood but have since been cut down. I think, I used to climb that tree, and now it is gone. Someday I will be gone, too. How is this possible? To be fair, I should state upfront that I am partly a religious person.

This means that I was partly raised to believe in God and I was taught that God will judge me at the end of my life. Heaven is not a given, not for anyone. Hell is real and is for those who turn their backs to God and His gifts. I say I was partly raised to believe this because this teaching was basically given by my mother. My father focused more on teaching me about worldly things—sports, work, school, making friends, money.

As far as he was concerned, these were the important things in life. I have to say, though, that in a way I am glad for having had these two different perspectives taught to me—but at times I do feel some tension between them. On the one hand, I was taught to live as though this life were what matters most and you should work and sacrifice to be able to get that good job, the nice house, that car, and so on.

On the other hand, I was taught that this life is temporary and that the real life is on the other side of the grave, and everything you do on this side impacts where you will go on the other side; in short, live so as to love God rather than so as to love stuff (i.e., cars, clothes, movies, etc.). At times, I feel like I am pulled in two directions at once and it can be a bit overwhelming.

Maybe that is why one of my favorite movies is The Tree of Life. That’s a film made by Terrence Malick. It covers a lot of ground but basically it is about a boy growing up in an American town in the 1950s.

He is coming of age and, like me, is given two views on how to live: his father teaches him to be a go-getter, someone who has to take and look out for himself because no one else is going to do it for him; his mother teaches him to be a giver, someone who loves others and sacrifices for them because this is what it means to be good and pleasing in God’s eyes.

The boy is kind of pulled between being a “selfish” but basically ordinary person and a “righteous” or what might be considered a kind, giving, and perhaps even extraordinary person. He has moments in which he acts in both ways, as he tries to understand which way is better. Ultimately, he finds that the loving way is more fulfilling—but this still presents challenges, because life is long and enduring love is not easy. One also needs to be practical.

I suppose the fact that The Tree of Life is one of my favorite movies might indicate that I am somewhat philosophical. Maybe I am. But, like I said, I am also practical, as my father taught me to be. That is actually why I am going to school to be an engineer. Engineering is a great field to be in right now. I am moderately mechanically inclined, in spite of my philosophical interests.

I am also trying to get started in the field right now by looking for a co-op through which I can start gaining some experience as a working engineer. My goal is to build up my resume so that by the time I graduate college I will be able to get started in my profession without delay. Most places want to see some.