NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
Title: My Day of Non-Violence [Date] My Day of Non-Violence Pre My day of Non-Violence My college class assignment to participate in my one day of non-violence seemed like the easiest work to me and since the assignment completion date was days away, I thought I could continue enjoying my student life and complete the assignment just in time before its handing over date. The assignment did not worry me in the beginning but its subject had like a seed germinated itself inside me and slowly it forced itself from the back of mind to consciously start making me think more and more about how I would complete it. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this subject in particular had gradually begun to worry and bother me. My thought process had suddenly become disturbed and I felt the urge to get over with this assignment as soon as possible so that I could continue with my somewhat carefree and easy paced student life where my involvement was focused totally to my education. I therefore decided to set for myself a normal college study in which I would participate in my one of non-violence and not on any holiday, where I would perhaps be tempted to sleep out the day. I therefore decided that my non-violence day would be on the following Monday, which was still four days away and mentally I started preparing myself this big day.
As the day started getting closer I started to wait for it with nervous anticipation as if I were to await the arrival and introduction to a new professor who would be teaching my favorite subject and on whom I would have to be at a good impression. My planning was to get inspired through the imagined portrayal of the worlds most famous non-violent personalities in my mind such as Gandhi, Nelson Mandele, Ex-President Jimmy Carter, Pope John Paul II and Ex-U. N. Secretary General Kofi Annan among others. But then I realized that these were too many people for a student like me to handle and that I had to narrow down my list so that I could study and adopt some of their techniques to get through my day of reckoning. My naturally logical gray cells therefore started the process of deducing who should be eliminated and who should be retained in my mental list of these great men.
The first person I decided to eliminate was the Ex-U. N. Secretary General Kofi Annan because during his tenure at the United Nations, the double-standards being adopted by the worlds strongest nations were freely allowed to be flaunted and the world had become an even more dangerous place to live in. Ex-President Jimmy Carter and Pope John Paul II had to also go because from a logical and analytical they could both be considered as career based professionals, who had adhered to their job-requirements of meaning well and advocating non-violence in their own ways. The conscious inspired best advocates of non-violence therefore remained Gandhi and Nelson Mandele to a student like me. But as these two titans were too many for me to learn from for just my one day of non-violence, I decided to go for the be-spectacled half-naked loin-clothed Gandhi, who had inspired the world during his lifetime and even posthumously everyone knew about his non-violence ways.
The waiting part for the day on which I would actively participate and put to test the principles of non-violence began to make me feel as if I was in some ways approaching my final examinations on which all of my grades would depend. (Jimmy Carter, John Paul II. Kofi Annan, Gandhi & Nelson Mandele) Without going into a detailed study about how Gandhi had lived and died, the two important aspects I could adopt from him for my day of non-violence were; the first the principle that if someone slapped me on one cheek, I would offer him my other one. And the second principle of see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil, based on the famous three monkeys who covered their eyes, ears and mouths. To live for just one day with these simple principles I presumed would not be such a difficult thing but how wrong I was in my assumption when I had to live through them just for one day! My Day of Non-Violence As soon as I woke up, I realized that this was the big day for me and I had to make a conscious effort to remind myself that I was to live a borrowed life for this day. And this one-day would be different from the normal students care-free living-style that I had adopted to without realizing the consequential changes it had eventually made to my character.
To adhere to the principles I had adopted for myself, I put some pebbles in my pockets and tightly tied a red colored band around my wrist. These would remind me not to deviate from my assignment whenever my hands came into contact with the pebbles or whenever I felt and saw the red band on my wrist. The tendency to be a do-good came naturally to me for this day as after brushing my teeth and bathing myself, I hung out my towel to dry out the dampness and cleaned out my room in an orderly fashion. For a change, I also arranged all my college books and educative periodicals in an organized sequence on study desk and on the book shelves above to the surprise of my parents. They assumed that my becoming so good was associated perhaps with the after-effects of some drug I might have experimented with. Or otherwise I had in some way become mentally unstable because all this was a shock to them after having got used to my room as a typical students junkyard room where disorder was considered as order.
My agreeing without protest to empty the garbage from the house and than washing my breakfast plates and cups broke the last straws on my parents back who had suddenly become suspicious about me. Although I had decided to account my experience and write about my assignment in secret, I was obliged to explain myself for my be good and non-violent way in the sense that I did not back-answer or protest to anything. I realized that my ordeal had just began as I saw my parents suddenly getting un confident about how they should deal with as I made my way to college. On my way to my college in the public transport bus, I saw a group of people getting on to the bus at the next stop and among them was also an old lady. Just as she made her way to a vacant seat, a couple of students just like myself brushed her aside and took the seat. On any given day, I would have stood up to such behavior aggressively but the red band around my wrist brought poor old but Gandhi rushing towards me in my mind and his smiling face restrained me from any untoward incident.
I therefore, with all the courtesy I could muster within myself ignored two students for what they were; just young boys who were arrogant in their behavior who would hopefully with age become gentlemen someday. And the nice, different and non-violent student in me offered my seat to the nice old lady who said a nice thank you that made me glow inside with self-satisfying pleasure. Just as I was making my way through my college entrance, I saw one of my professors carrying a heavy handful of books and students notes that she must have taken home for checking. Alongside Gandhi, the good me rushed to her and offered to carry her heavy load to the faculty-room, where on the way I was not surprised to hear the expected snide remarks of students implying I was the professors pet poodle etc.
Gandhi's presence made me ignore all the nonsense that was coming my way and made my resolve stronger to get through the remaining day by facing problems with a uniquely new and foreign approach. After my college periods when I was with my friends and we were loitering around the neighborhood, I observed some gang members going around with their sickly business of illegal drug selling. And than I looked at the addicts and the homeless people on the streets not with disdain like I had always done in the past but with understanding and pity. At that particular moment of time, how I had wished that I too had the same strength and conviction power of Gandhi to stops the wrongs of the world and make it a better place by non-violently means.
As the day went by, I learnt to see all things around me in a more humane way with deeper understanding of problems not from my point of view, but from the eyes of the people I was interacting with. The streak of aggressiveness and my being prone to outbursts of violence at the slightest provocation as a students way of proving a point that had ballooned up inside me was suddenly completely deflated. When I watched the television that evening, the involvement of the soldiers in the ongoing war, the war itself and its aftereffects, the injustices and the wrongs going on around me started having a completely new meaning around me. Even my views about the way education was being imparted in my college and the efforts of my professors to teach us students as best as they could, took on a new appreciative meaning. And I visualized Gandhi telling me he was happy that I was now looking at things through his eyes.
I also visualized him telling me that he hoped that it would not be only for one day that I would be looking at things his way, but for the rest of my days. And most importantly he said that he would be specially happy if I could in some way make other students like myself also view the world in Gandhi's and my new found way. Post My Day of Non-Violence The pebbles and the red wrist band always had Gandhi prodding his stick in my back to stem my aggressive natural self and his ever present smile helped to calm my nerves to the levels I did not know I could reach. My attitude towards my professors, my parents and my siblings, my student and most importantly towards my education had undergone a positive transformation. However, I also realized that perhaps some of these changes would disappear over the future periods of time, yet some changes would stay remain permanently with me for the rest of my life. Perhaps my assignment was conducted just as another college education exercise that had to be done, but its one day impact of living through it had taught me lessons that no college or sermon could ever teach me.
References Jimmy Carter web John Paul II web Kofi Anan, The Noble Peace Prize 2001 web Mahatma Gandhi web Nelson Rolihlahla Mandele web
Free research essays on topics related to: kofi annan, john paul ii, jimmy carter, pope john paul, secretary general
Research essay sample on John Paul Ii Pope John Paul
