Life has a way of making us sit up and take notice. Things we experience often turn out to be good lessons. If we want to share what happened and what we learned, the perfect venue is the personal essay.
The personal essay concerns something that happened to you. It might be highlighting most any kind of experience--humorous. tragic, interesting, timely and more. You can write pages about what occurred, use imagery, lovely phrases, action verbs, show rather than tell, and more. That's all quite important. But you need one more thing to make your personal essay worth a reader's time.
The golden nugget in a personal essay is illustrating a universal truth or what you, the writer, learned. Sometimes, it's spelled out perfectly. Other times, it is only inferred, but in such a way that your message is clear.
What is a 'universal truth'? One definition is 'messages or codes of behavior that tell us what it means to be human'.
When you write a personal essay, you're saying "Here's what happened to me and what I learned."
Today's quote is the perfect springboard for those who want to write a personal essay. Maybe you should hold onto what happened that hurt you long enough to write about it. Writing about your experience can do two things. It helps you understand and can be a step toward healing after a traumatic experience. You might also be of help to other people by relating your experience.
The personal essay is a perfect way to find insight in ourselves and to offer that golden nugget to others.
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