Entry 63: On Impulse

Everyone has impulses, some to do “good” things, and some to do “bad” things. Most people can control whether or not they actually act on their impulses, at least most of the time. People who can’t control their impulsive behavior often get into trouble and have problems getting along with others. Describe a time when you did something on impulse, or a time in which you had a strong impulse to do something but were able to control yourself. Try to describe what it feels like to have something pushing (or pulling) you to do something that you know might be the wrong thing to do in the situation. For example, when you know it is not right to make an inappropriate comment in class, but you do it anyway. If you can’t think of a situation in which this happened to you, try describing an example of impulsive behavior that you have witnessed in someone else.

• One of the strongest impulses that I always have, no matter at what time, is to read good stories. Sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes it's a bad thing. An example of it being a good thing is when it helps me improve my reading comprehension (for example, when the story is written in Victorian English, etc.) and my vocabulary (since there is a lot of unusual vocabulary used in Victorian period stories). An example of reading stories being a bad thing is when it distracts me from work. For example, I am very tempted to open up one of my new found stories and read it, but right now, I must concentrate on my work, since this is a very busy period for me, a junior. I have the normal load of classwork, SAT, and AP exams. Therefore, I must control my strong impulses so that they don't come into conflict with my academics, amongst many other things. This sometimes becomes very hard, because even though I succeeded in preventing myself from opening up my stories, my mind is still very distracted - it continues to drift towards that idea of reading a story or the plot of a story that I was reading at that current time. This is a very annoying and uncomfortable feeling.