I am a very peaceful person. I have been told this many times by my friends and by my family. I see no reason for any spiteful hatred and there is never an excuse for malicious animosity. I am not the only person who thinks this way. In fact a famous person once said, “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” I’ll bet you’d never guess who said it. It was Jimi Hendrix, and I couldn’t agree with him more. I believe that when the power of love becomes superior to peoples love and need for power, the world will be much more peaceful.

As much of an individual as I am, I have always been pretty good about working with people in groups. However in seventh grade a problem arose from a group activity. My two best friends, Sara and Britney, were placed into the same group as me and all of us were thinking the same thing. “This will be fun because we all get along.” I didn’t realize that Britney liked to have as much power over everything as she did. Sara and I got really angry and frustrated with the controlling tyrant, so we decided to talk to her about it after class. When class was over we stood out in the hallway and expressed our feelings about her having all the power and taking all the credit. Britney told us she was sorry and that she didn’t realize that she was doing it. She explained to us that sometimes she got carried away and everything went to her head. Sara and I could have quit being friends with her right then and there, but since we both loved Britney dearly, we decided to talk about things and sort things out in a peaceful manner.


While on my quest to find Nirvana, I’ve met plenty of new people. Marching band is something I’m very passionate about, and I was anxious to meet my instructor on the first day of camp. To my surprise it was someone only five years older than me. Dear, sweet Logan. At first he seemed like he knew what he was doing, then a couple practices later he proclaimed that he had absolutely no clue what he was doing; after all, it was his first year teaching. He also shared that since he was the teacher, he had the power. I’ll admit the pit wasn’t made up of the quietest group of people, and sometimes we weren’t always the nicest. Usually we got out of hand and were really hyper. That’s why he referred to us as his “ADD children.” We were all easily distracted, but I have no problem admitting I was the worst. I would say everything that came to mind even if it had no relation to what we were working on. My distractions, along with everyone else’s drove Logan crazy. Since he had no experience with this, all he knew to do was yell. He would scream, point fingers, and make jokes that were often downright offensive. The pit decided that we were tired of yelling and pointing fingers so we had a chat with him one night after practice. We didn’t gang up on him, we just calmly explained to him that we knew we weren’t the easiest group to teach, but we would try harder to be more on task if he would promise to try and be more lenient. And so the season went on, and it was much more peaceful.

Sibling rivalry is an issue within my household, but I’m sure we don’t fight over the same things most siblings fight over. We fight because he loves me, cares about me, and always looks out for my well being. Big brothers are supposed to look after their little sisters and make sure they don’t get hurt because that’s their job. My brother is good at that…he’s too good at that. It’s a joke between my brother and me that if I find a guy I like, he has to be “Jacob-approved” before anything happens. Sometimes it’s frustrating living with him because of this. He has more power than he should over my decisions and choices. Whenever he gets carried away and I get frustrated, I sit him down and talk to him about how he doesn’t have reign over me. He always agrees to work on his issues and he watches himself to make sure he isn’t being too controlling. Therefore, our house is much more peaceful.

Some people say Utopia is unachievable, but everyone has their own idea of it. I don’t think my version of Utopia is unachievable. It’s just calm, peaceful, and hate-free. I believe the power of love should always surpass the love of power. If everyone thought about it, I think they would realize that keeping peace is in society’s best interest.









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