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Title: The Power of Hello
Author: Howard White

Out of the four essays I listened to, I thought this one was the one that I can relate to the most because I am a lot like Howard White when he says that his mother has taught him how to be polite. My mother is the same way. She will not let me leave someone elses house without me at least saying good bye. I also like this essay the most because he wrote about not only the politeness of saying “hello”, but also the power it can give people by just acknowledging they’re there. Even having a simple conversation with someone can help you better understand them and even give you another friend in the future. Fiinally, this essay helped me realize that I no only use my voice to say things to people, but to also help me be noticed and appreciated for some of the things I do.

Title: The Virtues of the Quiet Hero
Author: John McCain

Out of the all the many essays that I read yesteday I think that this one caught my attention the most. The essay talks about one very basic thing the importance of faith. McCain and I both believe that this quality is one of the most important things that exists because everyone has it they just don’t always remember how to follow it. The fact that all men are created equal under their creator is still something that people fight against but we all know it’s true. The fact that even people who are part of a torture squad can take pity on someone that they are torturing is something that just proves everyone believes that nobody deserves to be treated any better or worse than they are treated. This essay made me even more interested in joining the U.S. Air Force so that I can do my part in ensuring that the country that first stated that all men are created equal never falls.

Title:Each Day I Try
Author: Jessica Lauren

Of the required essays I read over yesterday this one interested me because of its truth, effectiveness and because of the way its message is delivered. The essay is more of a autobiographical story written to catch your attention. It starts out with the author identifying with almost any reader by stating that the story takes place while the author is in school and struggling through math. The story is all about how the author’s father inspired her to greater things with a simple card with a few words about effort. As the story goes the tables are eventually turned as Ms. Lauren’s father comes down with cancer and she helps him. It is a great essay written by an english major that is worth reading.

After listening to five essays I chose the essay
“Tomorrow Will be a Better Day,”written by Josh Rittenberg. This essay was something that I
could relate to. In this writting Josh talks about how he eavesdrops on the conversations between his parents and realizes they are
talking about how bad his future maybe. The same conversations go on in family. Especially with the old people. Members of my family are constantly talking about how its going to be my generation to find the cure of cancer and aids etc.. But then again they my be right our generation could make the impossible possible.

The Friend That Makes Me Complete – By: Penny

I believe that freinds ship is one of the most important things a person can have in their life. Having a Best Friend that sticks with you throught thick and thin is rare. Having a best friend can be one of the best things that you can have in your life. A best friend will be with you throught everything fights, brakeups and deaths. A best friend is always a good thing to have around.

Title: Accomplishing Big Things in Small Pieces.
Author: William Wissemann

I really enjoyed the essay William wrote because he beilieved that, with his dyslexia, he could still accomplish things, and that he could be a normal person, just like everyone else. The thing that amazed me most about William was that, he could solve a Rubik’s Cube in a short period of time. The message William is sending out is, anything is possilbe, you just have to beilieve you can do it and just think positive. He said, in the essay, that he carried his Rubik’s Cube everywhere he went so that when he got frustrated all he had to do was solve the Rubik’s Cube to calm down. He also said that the cube taught him that if you want to accomplish big, you have to break them down into smaller pieces. I can relate with Williams situation because I was the same. I also had a tough time getting past school. No, I didn’t have dyslexia. I had a tough time in school because i knew 2 languages and it was hard for me to read and write in English. I would get the English words mixed up with the Albanian words I know. Now I’m doing much better becasue I know the English language, but I also stick with my first language, Albanian.

Title: Living Life Without Fear
Author: Micheal

This essay really shows that I can’t let fear control me. If I went out every day afraid of anything worth doing, I wouldn’t have any fun in life. The thrill of doing something is also being afraid of it. It’s ok to be afraid of something, most people are. Its the power to go against the fear which makes anything worth doing.

Out of all the essays that is read the one that hit me the most was this one about this girls stepmom who died from cancer. This one touched me the most because I had a friend whose step-dad died from cancer. It was really bad. He was also like my father. He died from colgne cancer. I just remember him not being able to go to the bathroom and at the end of his life he was not able to remember anything. It got out of control. I also most deffinantly agree with what this lady said that they are always with you, inside of you. And they are.

Title: This I Believe
Author: Cherry

This essay is good because it explains how he is feeling. It explains about a time in which he met a person who was very sick. He describes this time of death as a time was people grow close, a time were people change as the realize that its almost done. He says death is like a boundary. As opposed to most people who thing death is more like a wall were you are either on one side of it or the other. (Either dead or alive.) This essay reflects how people look at the end, how people change or act at the end of their time.

Title:the fear that I don’t matter
author:John

From all the essays I read this is the one that interested me most and I think that is very actual as a problem:it’s about the precious of of life and the importance of treating things well.
I was much sourprized when John said that he has grown up without never using his hands or his words to cause pain,but this was not a decision of him:it was because of a punishment made by his parents!!
When he became an adult, John was offered an opportunity to head a workshop making wooden toys for mentally and physically handicapped kids and he said that if he hadn’t accepted this opportunity he would have written prison officials for their permission to begin a new project.
He also said that the worst part about prison is not the violence or the loss of freedom,and what is better for everyone of us is not just being apart of anything that is good, but every good initiative for the human being must come from our selves.

Title: Telling Kids the Whole Truth
Author: Martha Leathe

I probably searched through at least 15 essays before I stumbled upon one that I could actually agree, and relate too. Parents should always talk to their kids about all the things that are eventually going to happen in life, if they haven’t already. They should talk about drugs, sex, and just growing up. Kids should feel comfortable coming to their parents and asking questions, wanting to know something that they just can’t figure out. Talking to kids about certain things can actually prevent them from making mistakes that they would have made if someone didn’t talk to them about it. Kids have a lot of questions, and the adults should be able to answer them without having to hesitate. Kids want to know the truth, and not have adults just beat around the bush.

Contributor: Ernesto Haibi
Title.Untold Stories of Kindness
After searching through all of these useless articles written by a bunch of little over emotional cry babies i finally found an article worth at least reading through. It was about how a soldier in Iraq

Title: A Way to Honor Life
Author: Courtney Davis

I liked this essay because everything Courtney says is very true. When a loved one is lost everyone has the two express their feelings of grief by crying or weaping. In the essay Courtney explains about how she felt when she lost her mother. Courtney explained that she felt scared and confused. Courtney didnt know whether to burst out in tears or to be strong and hold her feelings in. Holding in feelings of sadness is not very healthy, people should express their feelings in any shape or form.

Contributor: Ernesto Haibi
Title:Untold Stories of Kindness

After reading through a bunch of useless articles written by over emotional cry babies that have nothing better to do than write about how there daddy never told them bed time stories, I finally found an article worth reading. The article was about what a soldier in Iraq witnessed. He witnessed how all the bad things that happen in Iraq are publicized and the countless number of good things that happen are never brought up in the media. I wrote about this article because I agree with what it is saying. The world never focuses on the good; the world always has to find something to complain about. This is how I interpreted this article. (Feel free to argue)

After listening to five essays the essay I enjoyed the most was “Accomplishing Big Things in Small Pieces” by William Wissemann. The reason i chose this essay is because it makes sense to me. To accomplish something big you need to work for it and keep getting better at it. For example in this essay his example of accomplishing something in pieces is the Rubik’s Cube he worked at it piece by piece till he finally got it.

Title : The Power of Hello
By : Howard White

After listening to four essays on the web sight http://www.ThisIBieve.org there was one that caught my eye and it was The Power of Hello. In this essay Howard White tells us how when he was a young boy he walked past a man named Mr. Lee and didn’t say hello after they left his mom got very mad at him, She told him to always talk to other people even if your mad. By talking to people you make them happy and that eventually makes you happy. He carried this trait with him for years and one day when he was at work when he asked the head of the company how far he thought he could go in the organization; his answer was you could have the seat I am sitting in right now with the attitude you have. Now Howard White is the Vice President of this company and that really show the power of hello.

TITLE: NEVER HOLD A GRUDGE
AUTHOR: SAMUEL
People shouldn’t hold grudges against each other. For me, I can relate to this because I get in fights with my friends, parents, and even my sister. Most of my fights are with my friends though. If I were to be specific, I would say my friend Tyler. Tyler and I get into fights for the stupidest reasons you can think of. We had one big fight over the summer though. He and I had gotten into an argument and it resulted in me throwing all his stuff on the floor in the middle of the room and telling him to leave. Yes, I can say it, I over reacted, but I don’t think it was more than two hours later when we were back together. See, I cant hold grudges against people because the way I see it, its just not worth it. Why fight with people and make life more stressful rather than just get along. I BELIEVE IN FORGIVENESS.

The title of this essay is “Black Is Beautiful” and the author is Sufiya Abdur-Rahman. In this essay Sufiya talks about how her siblings suggested to her that she should place a different name on her resume, so that her name won’t sound so black. She goes on in the essay talking about the many great traits and customs that black people have. Sufiya’s examples were her thick nappy hair, full lips, and an inherent sense of rhythm. I have to agree with Sufiya a 100%, because people do stereotype people when they hear or read a persons name. I have heard a number of times that when people hear or read the name Ashleigh they think of a blonde rich girl who goes to daddy for everything and always gets what they want. I can tell all of you that I am nothing like that. I am a very independent person when it comes to making my way in life, and I don’t go running to daddy for everything. I have a father who that has nothing to do with me.

Title: An Ideal of Service to Our Fellow Man
Author: Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein is one the most respected people in history, and I consider hearing an essay from him an honor. The essay Einstein wrote caught my eye because his thoughts were so plain but very complex; I had to read most the sentences more than once to understand them because I was shocked how revolutionary his ideas were for his time. If everyone in the world could understand what Albert Einstein was saying in a short essay he wrote 50 years ago the world would be a much better place. These ideas are so large that it is surprising he could fit them in such a small essay. What Einstein first tries to say is that people sometimes have to realize that there are mysteries in life that will never be discovered fully, and that if there is no mystery in life than there is no point of living. He is also trying to point out that your behavior should not just be based off of your feelings, but also on the feelings of the people around you. Einstein states that if everyone acted as they wished the world would be in grave danger; so in order for society to function you cannot just care about yourself, you have to care about the people around you. I can now see why Einstein is so respected, he understood 50 years ago what we are still trying to figure out.

Title:The Lond Road to Forgiveness
Author:Kim Phuc

Out of all the essays I read i liked this one the best. In the essay it talked about forgiveness and getting over hatred. My self it is hard to forgive because it is the most diffcult out of all the lessons. I can remeber so times where I was in a situation where I hated something so much that later in life it wasn’t worth it because i could be free from hatred.

And this is what this essay is talking about. The lady talked about how she had so much hatred that she went to God for help and it showed her the lssons of forgiveness.

Building a Bank of Good Will, By: John

This essay is a very well writen piece of work. I feel his pain and what he went through. It is hard to lose a lot of family at once and i have only experienced it a couple of times but only one family member at a time. My uncle past away and he was like a father to me. Then a few years later my great grandpa died. I could not ever imagine losing five loved family members at one time.

Believe in people
Rebecca

In this article what interested it to me was that the lady had reached out to the children and talked to them. She wanted to help them and make them feel more impotent. She had help some 16 year old at the time and the girl hated it but then she was older she much better after 10 year than saw her. She says “I believe that believing in a person can help them believe in themselves”

The essay I thought I could relate to the most was “The Power Of Hello,” by Howard White.
I felt like I could relate to this essay the most because All my life since I can remember around 10 years old my mother has told me to be polite and courteous to everyone I meet. Reading this essay made me think about how saying hello to someone can really make a differnce between a good day and a bad one. When someone says hello to me I feel better and reply with a How is your day and just a simple Conversation like that you are puttin that person in your life for a minute and that makes me feel better. Reading this essay made me think of the real power behind Hello and I think that power can change sumones life so I will greet Everyone with at least a Hello.

To Question and Defend Our Country
By:Luara

Out of all the essays I read and listened too, I
liked this one the best because the girl Laura is talking about how when her brother was 19 he told his family he was joining the Air Force, and I can relate to that because my boyfriend is going to the airforce and I dont believe he should but then again I think he should because he is defending our country which is a good thing, but then again he could get killed from being in the war.so thats why I chose that essay because I can relate to it.

Living My Prayer
Contributor: Sister Helen Prejean
Location: New Orleans, LA

The story I listend to was one of the best in my opinion because she was a women who wanted to help the people who were less fortunate than she was. She was also a women who believed that prayer works miracles.

Of the three essays I listened to I happened to like “Some Things to Know about your Mother” By: Anne Donahue. Anne Donahue toched my heart with this essay, I can relate to it in a way. My mother and I don’t get along at all. Never have and most of the time I think we never will. Then there are times when you would think we are the same person, or like twins. Other times you would think we fist fight like siblings. Reading Anne’s essay I realized that if my mother were to leave this earth I wouldn’t know what to do. I’d be lost without her and as much as I may say I hate her and she may say that I’m not her child, I know that she loves me and I love her. Now everytime someone says “Your remind me of your mother” or “You sound just like your mother” when I do or say something I would like to know specificly what she did that makes us seem so similar.

Out of all the essays that I listened to, I liked
“Two Strangers in a Tiny Coffee Shop” By: Marsha. People should not “judge a book by it’s cover” and this essay shows that. At the beging of the essay, the women said that the elderly women looked like some one out of a book. She was judging her then. But when the two ladies that met each other, never speaking before and knowing nothing about each other, she found out that the women was nothing like what she thought. The reason why I liked this essay was because I believe people should get to know each other before they judge. Because you never know what someone else has been through, unless you get to know them. Or, live what they’ve been through yourself.

Contributor: Mano
I Believe In Death

I listened to many useless essays. I found one about afterlife that I can at least relate to in some way. It stated that there is nothing after you die. I picked this essay because it seems to me that it was written from someone who put a lot of thought into this topic, and I could understand where his ideas were coming from. The concept of life after death just seems too farfetched to me. There is no way to prove there is anything after I die, there is no way to prove that a god is real. So why should I believe in a “God” and a “Heaven” when the only infromation I have is from old people and what they think, and an old book, that could have easily been made up?

In response to David
I actually agree with you, I couldn’t find any essays worth reading because all of them were complaining about something or saying something from a somewhat ignorant standpoint.

Title: A special place in heaven
Author: Douglas

This is the essay I chose out of the tree I listened to. It had a sense of purpose. That there is injustice and racism in the world and because of that, people die. Maurice Carter should not have spent half his jail cell with only a few friends to support him. We need to change the way our judicial system is run. We need it to be a fair one. Where we don’t just take advice likely. We shouldn’t be bribed, and we can’t take favors of blind justice. Otherwise, we are the injust.

Title: Living Life Without Fear
Contributor: Micheal
Location: Evanston, IL
Country: Untited States of America

Out of four different essays I know this one is the best. It states that everything should be done without fear.
I know that I can’t let fear control me. If fear do control me I would be who I shouldn’t be. I must live life without fear. Live life to the fullest.

I am capable of more than I think I am
by Gregg Rogers

I agree with what this person is saying in this essay, which is why I chose it. The essay is about a man whose wife is going to have a child with a disability. He explains how he did not want to be the parent of a child with a disability. Eventually when the child is born, the father ignores the fact that his new born daughter has a disability and loves her just as much as he would if she didn’t have one. I feel the same way. I want a child that does not have a disability, but I know that no matter what, I will always love my child rather it has disabilities or not. My step mom’s brother has a daughter who has a disability, but she is still treated as though she didn’t and he and the rest of our family all love her the same amount as anyone else in the family. That is why I chose this essay.

The Choice to Do It Over Again
Daniel Flanagan

This essay tells about a good expierence that I can learn from. He talks about a time in his life when he made a bad decission at a young age. The mastake was dropping out of high school. Later in his life he found out that he needed a high school diploma to get a good job, so he went back to school for traing and now he is in colledge studying to be a Sociologist. This helps me to that how ever hard school is never stop trying, or you won’t have a future.

Title: Being Content With Myself
Author: Kamaal Majeed

After looking at a few essay I found one that I try to live my life by being content with myself. Anytime someone accuses you on being a conformist you jump to your own defense but the real question should be “are you okay with yourself”. This is a good story on how someone who acted differently truly liked who he was and who he was trying to be. Every person can have who they want to be in their right hand and who they are in their right and most people like to believe they are the imaginary person in their right hand. There is a person I strive to be and in reality no person can be perfect in their own eyes but it is good to be the closest you can be to your “perfect person”. If everyone’s “heart vibrates that iron string” all you have to do is make it sound like you want it to.

This I Believe
By : Howard White

After listening to four essays on the web sight http://www.ThisIBieve.org there was one that caught my eye and it was The Power of Hello. In this essay Howard White tells us how when he was a young boy he walked past a man named Mr. Lee and didn’t say hello after they left his mom got very mad at him, She told him to always talk to other people even if your mad. By talking to people you make them happy and that eventually makes you happy. He carried this trait with him for years and one day when he was at work when he asked the head of the company how far he thought he could go in the organization; his answer was you could have the seat I am sitting in right now with the attitude you have. Now Howard White is the Vice President of this company and that really shows the power of hello.

Title- The chance to do it over again
By- Daniel Flanigan

Out of the entire essay’s I have read I believe this one interested me the most. It told a great story of a man that started over, and fixed his life. He was a ninth grade drop out, he had many problems, such as drugs, alcohol and just being flat out lazy. When he became older he soon realized his life was being flushed down the toilette every day. He soon had a child named Blake and now had to get a decent job if he wanted to take care of his new born baby. Soon after Blake was born he went back to high school to try to receive his GED. After all his hard work he passed his test on his sons fourth birthday and is now in college studying to be a sociologist. This story shows that there are really second chances in life. It also shows you how if you just try you can change your life in a matter of months. Daniel Flanigan has set a great example for kids out there, and will also be a great role model for not only his son, but a lot of other students that are struggling. These are the reasons Daniel Flanigan has inspired me.

-Jason Tester-

Title: The Reality of Hell
Author: Jay ( last name not included)
Location: Wichita , KS
Series: Contempoary.

On the ThisIBelieve Website, I listened to 9 essays. The Reality of Hell was the last essay that I listened to, I felt as if I could relate to the author and the things he was saying in this essay. The author Jay and I shared numerous views on life and hell and how faith drifts away and eventually returns to you. Jay made a point that really stuck out to me. “why are we not mad at God when our love one dies from a heart atack”, and we just are naturally cooperative with the laws of God and how things work, just like we are with the laws of gravity. Hearing those words really just opened my mind and really made me realize thats the way I and millions of other people operate. There are things that we learn as a kid that might not make sense all the way but we learn to just except the way things are, like bad people go to hell and good people go to heaven, thats something I learned at a young age, I don’t fully understand but I accept it. This essay made me realize those things. The Reality of Hell was a well written, straight to the point essay that in enjoyed and could relate to in many ways.

Title: Some things to know about your mother
Author: Anne Donahue

After looking over some of the essays, this one caught my attention. This essay looked interesting because I also agree that every girl or boy should know their mother. You should know what makes her tick, what she likes, and other things about her. In this essay Anne Donahue’s mother died of colon cancer and she never got the chance to really get to know her. This shows the value of time that you have with your mother, and you should never take her for granted. Getting to know your mother isn’t bad and if something did happen to her, you will be glad that you did get to know her. Also Anne Donahue recently had a daughter, and she doesn’t want her daughter to miss out on her mother like she did. This is good because Anne Donahue’s daughter wont have to live with not knowing her mom like the she did.

-Katelyn Johnson

I really connected with the this i believe essay “To Hear Your Inner Voice”. I felt a connection because i often find myself hearing my inner voice or gut feeling telling to do or not to do something, like sometimes kids at school try to provoke you into fighting or make you angry your gut feeling would most likely tell you to think before you act on whats happening. If you refuse to listen i believe a lot of the time you will pay the price if you don’t listen to your instinct. “there is only one person with whom you go to bed every night and get up with every morning, and that is you.” a quote from the essay which i thought was really important because sometimes we do forget to listen to ourselves sometimes, maybe if we did listen to ourselves more we would make a lot less mistakes.

Title: I believe in picking up every penny.
Author: James

This essay is what I’m all about when it comes to sports. I believe that your little is a lot and the more you do of the less, it then adds up into something truly big. “I believe in picking up every penny. No matter if it be heads or tails, I pick it up. It’s worth 1¢ either way so why not? If you pick up a hundred pennies then you have a dollar, and you wouldn’t stumble across that would you?” This quote from James makes so much sense because the more you do of something small, in the end it will add up to something great. It truly is the little things that count the most. This essay is great for athletes who think not running that last lap hard or not finishing out the drill is significant.

A Shared Moment of Trust
Warren Christopher

I agree with Warren Christopher. He has made me realize how much we do put our faith and trust in others. We put our trust in total strangers everyday when we’re driving. We expect the driver that is coming in the opposite direction of us to stay in their lane. That person is also putting that same trust in us. We put our life in the hands of a doctor that we may not see ever again to do open heart surgery when needed, or to save a loved ones life. People don’t realize how much we put our faith in strangers’ everyday. Whether it is for a split second or over a long period of time.

Ray Tillman

The person I want to bring into this world

By: Laura Shipler Chico

Honesty, caring for another person, and being able to laugh at yourself are the three main reasons I loved this essay. In this story a woman, Laura, was deciding on what three characteristics that she would like her baby to have. This was a story that I had never heard before. The first thing I noticed was that Laura had been thinking about what kind of person she would like to bring into this world and i have never seen anyone do this before. When I read about this is that is caught my eye. It had caught my eye because it shows me that everyone in this world is not just getting pregnant and hoping for a certain gender baby, it shows me that this one person cares about if the baby is healthy and if it will grow to be a wonderful person. Like I have said before you dont see that a lot anymore. it shows me a lot.

Title: I Believe in You
Author: James

I believe in you to me is a very strong phrase that shows that you are being pushed and helped by other people around you to accomplish a goal. This also shows that you should not be afraid to do something because it might embarrass you or that is will make people mad.

The topic i choose was addiction and the name of the story was Love Is Trust and Faith and it’s about this insecure girl and she hated looking in the mirror she would only eat one thing everyday and take laxatives to lose weight,and the whole time nobody said anything to make her feel better about herself and i think that everyone need to know that they are beautiful because people wake up and think that they are the ugliest thing on earth. I like the fact that the author wrote this because people need to know that that there not the only feeling like this and that they need to know that they’re beautiful

Title: There is no God

Author: Penn Jillette

In this essay “There is no God” it makes me think that what he was trying to say was that people make mistakes but you have to be more careful in life. If you make one bad mistake it can ruin the rest of your life. Since he said there is no god i think he means that once you make a mistake there will be no forgivness coming from god.

Title: The Power of Hello
Author: Howard White

Out of the four essays I listened to, I thought this one was the one that I can relate to the most because I am a lot like Howard White when he says that his mother has taught him how to be polite. My mother is the same way. She will not let me leave someone elses house without me at least saying good bye. I also like this essay the most because he wrote about not only the politeness of saying “hello”, but also the power it can give people by just acknowledging they’re there. Even having a simple conversation with someone can help you better understand them and even give you another friend in the future. Fiinally, this essay helped me realize that I no only use my voice to say things to people, but to also help me be noticed and appreciated for some of the things I do.

Recently we blogged about Our “This I belive” essays. If you haven’t read mine you should know the essay that I blogged about was “Somethings to Know about your mother” by Anne Donahue. Ever since I read that artical and read what I wrote I felt that I would get to know my mother. So I did, in the car on the way to visit our family I began to ask My mother questions like “Who she had hanging on her bedroom wall?” when she was younger and did she ever go to her high schools Homecoming. Suprisingly she answered me instead of looking at me like I was phsyco. She had Micheal Jackson posters on her wall(While he was still good or shall I say bad, his bad album) and she went to her High School Homecoming sophmore and Senior year and went to her HIgh School Prom Freshman and Junior year. I’m glad I got to know something about my mother.

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