mind map for essay about every day is a gift

Home — Essay Samples — Life — Gratitude — Everyday is a Gift

Everyday is a Gift

• Categories: Gratitude Philosophy of Life

About this sample

Words: 698 |

Published: Sep 16, 2023

Words: 698 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

The gift of life, embracing the present moment, cherishing relationships, pursuing passion and purpose.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Verified writer

• Expert in: Life Philosophy

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

4 pages / 1894 words

3 pages / 1321 words

4.5 pages / 2031 words

3.5 pages / 1506 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Gratitude

Gratitude—such a simple word, yet one that carries immense weight and significance. In a world that often rushes by, pausing to reflect on the blessings and experiences that fill our lives can be transformative. This essay [...]

The act of showing gratitude is a simple yet profound gesture that has the remarkable ability to transform both individuals and communities. In a world often consumed by haste and ambition, taking a moment to express [...]

The Ross Gay’s book Catalogue of unabashed gratitude consists of several poems with rich content. The report analysis herein will cover three poems from the book such as “Burial,” “Weeping,” and “Catalogue of Unabashed [...]

As a part of this course, learning positive in both theory and practice is imperative as envisioned in our syllabus. As such, one learns how to help others increase their happiness and well-being with a goal of producing a [...]

Happiness is a chief human concern because it provides purpose and meaning to our actions. A chief concern of a sub-discipline within psychology resolves around the conditions and prerequisites for human happiness in general. [...]

In the “Narrative Desire” chapter of his larger work, Reading for Plot, author Peter Brooks discusses the different modes of desire that exist within a reader. He argues that these desires are the forces of momentum brought to a [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

• Free Teaching Resources
• Universities
• Public Colleges
• Private Colleges
• N6 Question Papers and Memorandums with Study Guides
• N5 Question Papers and Memorandums with Study Guides
• N4 Question Papers and Memorandums with Study Guides
• N3 Question Papers and Memorandums with Study Guides
• N2 Question Papers and Memorandums with Study Guides
• N1 Question Papers and Memorandums with Study Guides
• Latest Updates
• Learning Content

• Life Orientation LO Grade 12 Study Resources Directory

Every day is a gift essay Speech for Grade 12 learners

On this page, we provide a quick guide and a structure of “Every day is a gift” essay for Grade 12 learners. This kind of essay is typically a short essay of those where you are required to write at least: 200 words, 250 words, or 300 words.

Table of Contents

3 Things that will make your Grade 12 Essay outstanding

• Great introduction: An introduction, which gets the reader’s attention, leads to a purpose statement (e.g., “This essay talks about the importance of every new day that we are gifted with”), in which you explain the purpose and scope of the essay.
• The main body of the essay : this is where you develop your argument in detail and make reference to other related matters to make your arguments solid.
• The ending: The conclusion or the ending is where you summarise the main points of your argument and consolidate them into one narrative.

Example: some arguments you might add on your essay for “Every day is a gift “

Perhaps we should commence by a contrary question, why is every day not a gift? As I crack my head and ponder upon this question, I find it rather impossible to “not find” every day as a perfect gift to humanity. This essay talks about the importance of every new day that we are gifted with.

Like every new moon, every season, every year, and indeed every day, we are given as a gift. What is a gift? I would say a gift is something that I cherish, something I did not give to myself. There are plenty of gifts that sustain my being and my presence on mother earth such as a new fresh breath I did not buy, a new heart beat I did not force, a new perfect sleep which is followed by waking up afresh in the perfect morning. All these are gifts to me. All these are the new beginnings and possibilities for me. Just for me. For me and you.

Every day is a gift. “Life is a gift, make good memories out of each moment.”―  Martin Ugwu

If we perceive every day as a new gift to us, we will definitely not miss any opportunity that comes with a new day.

Watch: Every day is a Gift Essay Video Guide

Another Example of Every day is a Gift Essay

Everyday is a gift, a precious opportunity to experience the beauty and wonder of life. Each day is a new beginning, a chance to make the most of our time and to leave a positive impact on the world around us.

One of the most important things to remember about everyday being a gift is that it is not a guarantee. Life is fragile and uncertain, and we should never take it for granted. Every day is a chance to live fully and to appreciate the beauty of the world around us. It is important to make the most of every day, to live in the present, and to be grateful for the simple things.

One of the ways we can make the most of everyday is by setting goals and working towards them. Whether it’s a big dream or a small step, having something to strive for gives us purpose and direction. It helps us to focus on what is truly important, and to make the most of the time we have. Setting goals also helps us to measure our progress and to see how far we’ve come. It is a way to keep track of what we have accomplished and what we still need to do.

Another way to make the most of everyday is by being grateful for what we have. We often take things for granted and fail to appreciate the beauty and wonder of the world around us. By taking the time to be thankful for the simple things, we can cultivate a sense of contentment and happiness that will carry us through the ups and downs of life. Gratitude also helps us to appreciate the present and to live in the moment.

Another important aspect of making the most of everyday is to be kind and compassionate to others. By treating others with kindness and understanding, we can make a positive impact on the world around us. We can help to create a better today and tomorrow for ourselves and for those around us. Being kind and compassionate also helps us to connect with others and to build positive relationships.

Lastly, everyday is a chance to learn, grow and improve. We should take advantage of every opportunity to learn and grow. Whether it’s through education, travel, or simply by living our lives, we can always strive to be better and make a positive impact on the world around us. Learning and growing is a lifelong process that helps us to gain new knowledge and skills, to become more self-aware, and to improve our quality of life.

In conclusion, everyday is a gift, a precious opportunity to experience the beauty and wonder of life. Each day is a new beginning, a chance to make the most of our time and to leave a positive impact on the world around us. It is important to remember that every day is a chance to live fully and to appreciate the beauty of the world around us. By setting goals, being grateful, being kind and compassionate to others, and taking advantage of opportunities to learn and grow, we can make the most of everyday and create a better today and tomorrow for ourselves and for those around us.

Did You See These?

Life Orientation Grade 12 Previous exams with detailed annotations

Life Orientation Grade 12 Source Based Task 2024 pdf Guide

Two ways in which women and children can be protected from discrimination and violence

The Importance of Positive Parent Involvement Regarding Sexuality

How Relationships can Impact Negatively on the Achievement of Goals

Negative Effects on Youth: Limitations to the Right to Freedom of Expression on Social Media

FOUR Roles Which Electronic Media Could Play to Advocate for a Safe and Healthy Environment

The importance of assessing needs and desires in identifying a business opportunity

• Share This Post:

Add a Comment

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Reset Password

Free Mind Map for Essay Templates by GitMind

Making an essay is a common piece of advice offered to you along with your writing assignment. In that case, this post will teach you how to make mind maps as well as how to use pre-made mind maps for essay models. Mind mapping organizes information in a way that mirrors how our brains truly operate, as opposed to standard note-taking or linear text that you’ve been taught or have grown accustomed to. It can also help you avoid the stumbling blocks and overload created by overt analytical thinking. It lets you view more than one notion at a time, which helps to clarify your thoughts.

Free Mind Map for Essay by GitMind

Effective essay writing, essay topic template, paragraph essay organizer, mind map for essay benefits, how to create a mind map for an essay.

A mind map for writing an essay is a written piece in which you convey a certain topic and then back it up with facts, claims, analyses, and explanations. The five-paragraph essay is the most common style of an essay, though an essay can have as many parts as necessary. A 5 essay is comprised of five paragraphs. An essay, on the other hand, is divided into 3 sections: an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.

According to the mind map essay example, an essay is a written piece in which you convey a certain topic and then back it up with facts, claims, analyses, and explanations. The five-paragraph essay is the most common style of an essay, though an essay can have as many parts as necessary. A 5 essay is comprised of five paragraphs. An essay, on the other hand, is divided into 3 sections: an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.

Plan essay mind map template with this paragraph organizer. The introduction should begin with a broad statement and end with a thesis statement that zooms in on the themes you will discuss in considerable depth. The proof of your idea should be included in the body paragraphs. Lastly, the conclusions affirm your topic and the key ideas of your work and then zoom out with an assessment or comment on the greater issue.

Mind map for essay may be an excellent method for you to try if you want to attain higher levels of attention and creativity, as well as the improved organization and more succinct communication. The advantages of concept maps are numerous and diverse. In essence, they include: presenting an overview of a vast subject/broad issue and enabling you to portray it in a more compact manner and also creating a more appealing and entertaining structure for your ocular to look at, ruminate over, and remember.

Creating a mind map essay example is always challenging, even if you are a superb writer and are well-versed in the subject. In contrast to other types of writing, you need to cultivate an interesting way of thinking in order to persuade readers of your point of view. In this instance, a program like GitMind might be useful. It will enable you to write essays that need ordered thought. While there are various strategies for arranging the thoughts you want to include in your essay, many people connect using a mind map for essay writing to utilizing a mind map. This program makes it easy to brainstorm, convey your ideas, and clarify your position.

• To get started, go to the GitMind official website. and then press the “Get Started” button.

• Start designing your mind map for writing an essay by clicking the “Create MindMap” button.

• Select your favorite layout and begin entering data into each node.

• When you’re finished, just click the “Save” button to save your changes.

In summary, making a mind map for essay writing is a basic yet very efficient method of brainstorming and outlining your thoughts. A mind map represents your topic by using a primary thought and branches that explain the center notion. Terms and keyphrases, color codes for phrases and branching, and visual materials like doodles or symbols are all used in well-drawn mind maps. On a single page, you may generally summarize all of your essay’s main points.

Related posts:

• Best 8 Free Online UML diagram tools in 2024
• What is A Probability Tree Diagram and Real Life Uses

Leave a Comment

Comment (0).

This website uses cookies that are essential for the operations of this website and its core functions. Other cookies will only be placed with your consent. For more details visit our Cookies Policy .

BLOG | PODCAST NETWORK | ADMIN. MASTERMIND | SWAG & MERCH | ONLINE TRAINING

• Meet the Team
• Join the Team
• Our Philosophy
• Teach Better Mindset
• Custom Professional Development
• Livestream Shows & Videos
• Administrator Mastermind
• Academy Online Courses
• EDUcreator Club+
• Podcast Network
• Speakers Network
• EDUpreneur Mastermind
• Free Downloads
• Ambassador Program
• Free Facebook Group
• Professional Development
• Request Training
• Speakers Network Home
• Keynote Speakers

Each Day Is a Gift

Livia Chan April 30, 2021 Blog , Connect Better , Manage Better , Reflect Better , Self Care Better

• Stop to notice priceless gifts all around us. It leads to greater positivity, joy, and respect for our place in this world.
• Each day is a gift. Embrace it. Even though you may be struggling, life is still worth living.
• Reach out for help when you are struggling. We are stronger together. Reach in to others to offer support and make a difference through every opportunity for interaction.
• Chase your dreams. Take one small step every day.
• See the challenges for the month below!

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a GIFT. That is why it’s called the PRESENT.

– Master Oogway, Kungfu Panda

Priceless Gifts

Gifts are all around us. They are waiting for us to discover like a diamond in the rough. The more I expand my horizons to not just see but truly embrace these intangible yet priceless things as gifts, the more I appreciate what is right in front of me. Thank you for joining me on this journey as we extend our view of the gifts that were always there…waiting.

Stop and notice…with intention. 

What are things you can see as GIFTS that offer an opportunity for deep

G ratitude,

I nspiration to live your life with greater meaning,

F oundational to our inner being, and something you can 

T reasure once you find it, for the rest of your life? 

In my first post for this Gift Better blog series last month, I wrote about the gift of words. (If you want to dive into a deeper conversation about this, join Martin Silverman and me on his podcast episode where we talk further about the gift of words.) Such priceless value in the words we intentionally choose for others and the ones we receive as gifts. In future months, I will dive into topics such as the gift of opportunity, the gift of connection, and the gift of believing in others.

The practice of seeing such things as gifts shifts my mindset so I am able to be more present, mindful, and aware of my daily surroundings. The result? Greater positivity, joy, and respect for my humble place in this world. My hope in sharing is that you will discover and embrace the same.

Each day is a gift. Embrace all of the joys a day has to bring. It's right there...waiting for you to notice, see, accept, and receive with gratitude. Click To Tweet

Personal Struggles

Do you ever go through times in your life when you are not feeling quite like yourself? A couple of weeks ago, I felt this way. Gratefully, this is not common but it definitely made me hyperaware of how I was feeling. I couldn’t pinpoint any one event but a number of accumulated things weighed on my heart and mind.

All throughout the year, my class has been very cohesive, kind and empathetic, and inclusive.  But last week, there were a number of incidents that really challenged our caring community which sat heavily on my heart. You see, I am a person that values harmony. I feel much happier when people in my life get along. And it affects me deeply when people don’t.

Life Can Be a Struggle

Last Tuesday, I woke up with feelings of unease and a bit of anxiety. On my drive to work, I listened to a voice message, thinking it was my sweet mom because I thought I saw her name. It wasn’t her. To my shock and utter disbelief, it was a man from Arizona who accidentally left a message. He expressed his love for his brother and informed him that he was really struggling. He wasn’t sure how much more he can handle life and intimated he will harm himself so he was reaching out to say I love and appreciate you. 

I cried all the way to work. Good thing my commute is only a four minute drive. As I entered the school, barely holding it together coupled with how I was already feeling from the past couple of weeks, I went straight into my principal’s office thankful to have someone to lean on. As I am writing this, I feel emotional all over again even though it turned out to be a favorable outcome. 

Every interaction is an OPPORTUNITY. I know not everyone believes this, but I believe things happen for a reason. I spoke from my heart and left a message for the caller. The Phoenix Police Department informed me that they got a hold of him a day later and he was still alive. A great sense of relief instantly came over me. This was the spark that I needed to return to feeling my usual self. I have no idea if he listened to my message or whether it made any difference but I did what I could to support a stranger in need.

A Reminder That Each Day Is a Gift

I shared these stories because they reminded me that each day is a gift. Even though we may be going through struggles, life is so worth living especially when we choose to see the day as a precious gift that is valued deeply.

Embrace all of the joys a day has to bring. It’s right there…waiting for you to notice, see, accept, and receive with gratitude. We can control how our day unfolds starting with how we choose to think and live as our authentic selves and how we interact with those around us.

Each day is a new day—a gift for you to notice and receive with graciousness. It starts from within.

So when we are struggling, it is so important to reach out to other people to seek help. It is through our connections that we are stronger together. I cannot imagine how I could have dealt with these situations without sharing with others. We do not have to go through life or any part of life alone. The sooner you reach out for help, the sooner you can get support. If you find yourself in a place where you don’t feel comfortable speaking to someone you know, then there are helplines that offer anonymity. 

Each day is a gift for us to make a difference in the lives of those we touch. In every interaction, it is truly an opportunity. Choose to see it as an opportunity. When somebody says how are you and they respond, “I’m fine,” ask for more. That was an opportunity to find out how they are really doing and uplift them. Please allow me to encourage you to make the most of every day. It is a gift for you to spread your love, passion, purpose, and sunshine in others’ worlds.

Start embracing. The day has been given to you as a gift. Take it. Treasure it. The day is yours to make an impact. 

Mindfulness

We’ve been encouraged by people like Eckhart Tolle to be fully present and to embrace the power of now. We have 24 hours in a day. What we do between the 12 o’clocks counts. I found that becoming more aware and practicing mindfulness helped me to see each day as a gift. 

Mindful practice: Last month, I guided you through mindful practice to fully absorb intentionally chosen words as a gift of words from others. Today and every day, find at least one moment where you stop, perhaps close your eyes, and be still. As you breathe deeply, take in how your day was a gift given to you. Feel gratitude. Then breathe and deepen that gratitude even more. Reflect on the positive things that a new day offers—love, connection, opportunities, and so much more.

Each Day Is a Gift: Chase Your Dreams

What is your purpose or passion? What is your WHY? Align your day to it. 

What are your dreams, hopes, and wishes? Take small steps every day to make it happen. One step every day leads to 365 steps in a year!

Is what you’re doing serving you and those in your care or loved ones? If not, change it. Reflect and make it better.

Gift Better Challenge

Each day is a gift—a present. When I began to view more things as gifts, it changed me for the better. There are days I struggle too. The “each day is a gift” is not a mindset I can uphold every second of every day but I am able to be more aware every day. This led me to greater overall happiness, positivity, and gratefulness in my heart. 

Next month, I am excited to share the gift of gratitude. Until then, here are some ideas for this month’s challenge. Begin to see each day as a gift. Pick one or pick all:

• Build this daily habit: W ake up and before you think of all the things you need to accomplish today in the first minute of being awake, think, “Wow, I have been given the gift of a new day! I have been blessed to go and make a difference in people’s lives today! I feel grateful.” Create your own challenge to try it for ___ days or weeks. Then make a commitment to reach out to the first three people you thought of. They were placed on your mind for a reason.
• Make a difference in one person’s life every day.
• Make one small step toward your dreams to embrace each day.

Seize the day! Life is too short. Make the most of it! We’ve all heard these sayings from time to time. They’re great reminders but the reality is that it’s hard to live by every single day, especially with how very busy we are. But, we can aim to remember these messages more often by seeing each day as a gift.

I’d love to learn what resonated with you. I would love to connect. Please feel free to fill out this form so we can!

With a heart full of gratitude, Livia

ABOUT LIVIA CHAN

Livia Chan is an educator passionate about community, teaching, leading, and lifelong learning. She truly believes in the power of connection and thoroughly enjoys building relationships by reaching out with kindness and gratitude. Livia lives by the belief that it is through every interaction that we have the opportunity to appreciate and uplift others to help make their day a brighter one. Her other passions include family, friends, and ringette, which she is heavily involved in as a volunteer coach, Executive member, referee, and player.

Every Day Is a Gift: A Memoir

Tammy duckworth.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published March 30, 2021

About the author

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think? Rate this book Write a Review

Friends & Following

Community reviews.

Join the discussion

Can't find what you're looking for.

• PRO Courses Guides New Tech Help Pro Expert Videos About wikiHow Pro Upgrade Sign In
• EDIT Edit this Article
• EXPLORE Tech Help Pro About Us Random Article Quizzes Request a New Article Community Dashboard This Or That Game Popular Categories Arts and Entertainment Artwork Books Movies Computers and Electronics Computers Phone Skills Technology Hacks Health Men's Health Mental Health Women's Health Relationships Dating Love Relationship Issues Hobbies and Crafts Crafts Drawing Games Education & Communication Communication Skills Personal Development Studying Personal Care and Style Fashion Hair Care Personal Hygiene Youth Personal Care School Stuff Dating All Categories Arts and Entertainment Finance and Business Home and Garden Relationship Quizzes Cars & Other Vehicles Food and Entertaining Personal Care and Style Sports and Fitness Computers and Electronics Health Pets and Animals Travel Education & Communication Hobbies and Crafts Philosophy and Religion Work World Family Life Holidays and Traditions Relationships Youth
• Browse Articles
• Learn Something New
• Quizzes Hot
• This Or That Game
• Train Your Brain
• Explore More
• Support wikiHow
• About wikiHow
• Log in / Sign up
• Education and Communications
• College University and Postgraduate
• Academic Writing

How to Create a Mind Map for Essay Writing

Last Updated: December 1, 2023 Fact Checked

Generating Your Map

Organizing your map for writing, expert q&a.

This article was co-authored by Jake Adams . Jake Adams is an academic tutor and the owner of Simplifi EDU, a Santa Monica, California based online tutoring business offering learning resources and online tutors for academic subjects K-College, SAT & ACT prep, and college admissions applications. With over 14 years of professional tutoring experience, Jake is dedicated to providing his clients the very best online tutoring experience and access to a network of excellent undergraduate and graduate-level tutors from top colleges all over the nation. Jake holds a BS in International Business and Marketing from Pepperdine University. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 286,168 times.

If you’re a visual learner or just looking to switch up how you outline your essays, mind maps can be a game-changer. They make coming up with ideas for your essay and organizing them super easy. If you’ve never used a mind map for essay writing before, don’t worry—we break down everything you need to know to get started in the steps below.

Things You Should Know

• Get out a piece of paper and write your topic in the center. This can be a single word or sentence.
• Then, write down any words and ideas that relate to your topic. Circle them and then draw lines or arrows to connect them to the topic.
• Label each bubble idea according to where it fits into your paper. This can be a specific paragraph or a general section, like the introduction.

• Lay out the colored markers or pencils to which you have assigned meaning.
• Orient your paper so that it is in landscape position.
• If you don't have colored pencils or markers, don't worry. You can still make a mind map with just a pen or pencil!

• Circle your topic.

• Each thing you write down may give you another association. Write that down as well. For instance, writing "Impairment vs. disability" might remind you of "wheelchair ramps."
• Try to cluster related thoughts together ("wheelchair ramps"—"access to public life"), but don't worry if it doesn't always happen—you can draw a line between things you wish to connect.
• Look for connections between your unrelated thoughts and jot them into the picture.

• You might also label them "supporting argument," "evidence," "counterargument" etc.

• Include doodles if they occur to you, but again, don't get caught up in making them perfect.
• Depending on your age and essay topic, you might want to focus more on drawing pictures than writing out words.

• While there are plenty of programs available for purpose, you can also use free online mapping tools like Bubble.us, Mind42, or Coggle.

• Add details as you go. For instance, you may write some of the sources you are planning to use to the sections of your essay to which they apply.

• If you do this, you can start by drawing bubbles for the sections and continue by filling in the thoughts and associations.
• You can also organize your revised mind map into bubble for topic sentences that branch into smaller bubbles for supporting arguments and evidence.
• Once you've done this, you practically have a rough draft of your paper.

• Start each paragraph with a sentence that introduces the ideas of that paragraph, and write until you have incorporated all the information for that section.
• If you end up adding things that weren't on your map, look at your map to check that they fit, and consider penciling them in. One of the virtues of the map is that it keeps you on topic.
• Make sure you're not cramming too many points from your mind map into a single paragraph.

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.adelaide.edu.au/writingcentre/sites/default/files/docs/learningguide-mindmapping.pdf
• ↑ https://emedia.rmit.edu.au/learninglab/content/how-create-mind-map
• ↑ https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/using-concept-maps/
• ↑ Jake Adams. Academic Tutor & Test Prep Specialist. Expert Interview. 20 May 2020.

About This Article

• Send fan mail to authors

Reader Success Stories

Mashudu Munzhedzi

Nov 21, 2016

Did this article help you?

Mar 8, 2017

Nov 8, 2023

Feb 19, 2017

Featured Articles

Trending Articles

Watch Articles

• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Do Not Sell or Share My Info
• Not Selling Info

Get all the best how-tos!

Sign up for wikiHow's weekly email newsletter

Mind Map for Essay: Complete Guide With Useful Tips

Edraw content team, planning to create mind map for essays.

EdrawMind is a powerful tool that lets you create mind maps for essays. Learn from this essay writing tips guide to know everything about different essay writing. Try this mind-mapping tool today!

Essay writing is one of the most crucial parts of any academic curriculum. Most students consider writing an essay a dreadful task, but with the correct essay writing tips, one can easily master the techniques. In this article, we will show you the importance of mind maps for essay writing. Creating a mind map for essay writing helps academic students visualize the idea before they start writing it. Here, we will discuss different essays and illustrate how just by creating a mind map in EdrawMind, one can easily write long essays for their academic purpose.

1. What is mind mapping?

Before we begin understanding the benefits of making a mind map for essay writing, we should first understand mind mapping in detail.

In general, mind mapping is a diagramming technique that helps display information visually. Let us suppose you have to write about yourself, including your hobbies, details about your parents, the video games you love to play, and more. In this case, mind mapping would be the technique you will use to visualize the content going along in your 'about me' essay. Since most students prefer to outline their essays before actually converting them into long paragraphs, it is always considered good practice to make a mind map in and around the essay's primary topic.

There are a couple of ways that mind mapping benefits the students who intend to write a good essay.

• A student can visualize the entire essay even before starting to write it.
• A student can prioritize the segments based on their subtopics.s
• A student can go back to the mind map and understand if they have missed out on any important topic.

Once students have created a mind map, they can seemingly convert it into long paragraphs for an essay. In most cases, if a student can add the mind map to the essay, it will help the reader understand the important topics covered in the submitted long piece.

2. Mind Map Helps with All Types of Essays

In academic writing, there are six different types of essay writing. As a student, you can create a mind map for different essays and later use these steps to write the essay itself. Here, we have covered all the six different types of essays and helped you understand how mind maps benefit someone who intends to write astonishing essays.

1. Argumentative Essay

An argumentative essay is a form of essay writing that requires a student to go analytical by investigating a topic, collecting the data, generating the points, evaluating all the gathered evidence, and establishing a position on the topic. As you see, an argumentative essay requires the student to go in-depth about their research. If the student works on a mind map for an argumentative essay, they will be able to properly create different segments while outlining their investigative and evaluative stages.

When a student creates a mind map, it facilitates a visual sketch of the entire material the student has gathered to write the argumentative essay. In addition, by creating a mind map, the student ensures that they have all the relevant information before proceeding to write the essay.

2. Admissions Essay

Admission essays are essays that one writes to get themselves enrolled at any particular college or university. Admission essays mostly consist of a statement of purpose (SOP), a student's academic record, a student's record of extra-curricular activities, references, and personal details. An admission essay is considered a very important piece of writing because it allows the college or university to know the student better and learn more about any specific situation.

When a student is writing an admission essay, creating a mind map is extremely handy because it allows the students to jot down the details of all of their achievements in a manner that resonates with the admission process. In a mind map, the student can dedicate a specific portion to their SOP, add their academic record in other subtopics, and then work ahead to showcase their achievements. Once the mind map for the admission essay is created, the student can follow the basic steps to writing an essay.

3. Persuasive Essay

A persuasive essay is a type of essay where a researcher or a student supports their content with facts and logical reasons to sway readers to a particular standpoint. In general, while writing a persuasive essay, the primary intention of the writer is to persuade the reader and convince them on a specific issue.

As you see, a persuasive essay requires a detailed logical argument and an emotional appeal. Most students tend to create a mind map before writing their persuasive essay to find the loopholes in the early stages of essay writing. A persuasive essay consists of three important parts: issue, side, and argument. By creating a mind map for an essay, a student can create these subtopics and work on them individually.

4. Compare-and-Contrast Essay

When students need to point out the similarities and differences between two or more subjects, they create a compare-and-contrast essay around it. Writing a compare-and-contrast essay is great for illustrating what separates and unites related topics, particularly those topics or concepts that are often misinterpreted by each other. In a compare-and-contrast essay, a student does not choose two specific topics to provide a contrast. Rather, they compare and contrast two types of similar topics to highlight subtle differences. For instance, when someone has to compare and contrast between watermelon and muskmelon, they will choose two different breeds of dogs and cats to convey the exact difference.

By creating a contrast-and-compare essay mind map, one can easily note the differences and similarities between two subjects. A mind map will help brainstorm the topic, collect the sources, and outline the essay structure.

5. Personal Essay

As the name suggests, a student writes about their experiences without having to prove any particular point in a personal essay. In personal essays, the author only intends to introduce the topic to the reader and make them aware of the subject and the theme. In most cases, a personal essay is based on feelings, emotions, personal experiences, and personal opinions.

While creating a mind map for a personal essay, the author can work on some important elements, like creating a compelling hook, presenting an engaging story, introducing interesting characters, having an immersive setting, and presenting meaningful conversations. With the help of a mind map, one can easily separate all these elements into subtopics and work on them individually. This way, they can present a more compelling story without missing out on important details.

6. Expository Essay

An expository essay is a long-form essay where the author's primary intent is to explain or describe a particular topic by providing factual information. When an author starts preparing for an expository essay, they start by investigating an idea, evaluating the gathered evidence, expounding on the idea, and concisely presenting an argument. Often, students get confused between expository and argumentative essay writing. The core difference between the two genres is that an expository essay will contain the information and explain the topic in brief. At the same time, an argumentative essay will contain the writer's personal ideas, facts, and other statistics.

Since expository essays contain information based on investigation and evaluation, creating a mind map for such essay writing is recommended. Using a mind map, the author can easily visualize all the evidence related to the information and brainstorm the topic before starting the writing process.

3. Mind Map for Essay: Step by Step

Now that you have understood how students can easily visualize their ideas by creating mind maps for essays, let us give you a detailed step-by-step description of how you can use mind maps for essay writing. It should be noted here that these are generic steps and can easily be applied to all the different types of essay writing.

1 Find Essay's Topic:

The first step in essay writing is coming up with a unique idea or a topic less explored. If you work on an essay topic that is already covered several times by different authors, your research might be hard-pressed to develop a unique standpoint. Instead, it is recommended to come up with the essay topic you are personally interested in, or at least something you can talk about without major complications. Choosing your essay's topic that is close to you will make the entire task of essay writing less monotonous.

• Create a mind map in a tool like EdrawMind and name the primary topic, 'Essay Topic.' Now start adding different ideas as its subtopics. These subtopics can be anything that you are closely associated with. For instance, you can add different ideas that your professors might have suggested or some ideas that were previously discussed in the classroom.
• Add your own areas of interest to the mind map and try to connect the dots with the ideas that you must have added in the previous step. Once you have a few good ideas that intersect with your interest and the ideas that were previously discussed, you can start weighing them against one another by noting down their respective pros and cons. Remove the ideas that have several cons and start working on that essay topic with maximum pros.

2 Commence Research Process:

Research is one of the most important processes in essay writing. At the same time, students often get confused between different arguments and counterarguments presented to them from different research papers. Students often waste an enormous amount of time just trying to figure out how to put all the different information into one piece. What all these students need is to make a mind map for essay writing where they can easily collect and structure their data and information.

• Create a mind map for different sources and make additional notes in these mind maps as you go on through the text. EdrawMind provides you with a comment option that helps in taking additional notes as and when they are required.
• Sometimes, students create one single mind map where they list all of their resources and branch them out for every quote and information, they want to use in the essay paper.

3 Outlining Essay Paper in a Mind Map:

Before you start writing your essay, you first create an outline of your paper that will help create a coherent structure of your arguments, counter arguments, examples, and sources. By using a mind map, one can easily review the outline and access the information they require in their essay.

Creating a mind map to outline your essay ensures that one will walk through sources and information more efficiently. It also enables the author to find and review information whenever they are stuck at any point.

4. Useful Tips for Your Essay

Essay writing can be a fun exercise if you follow some of the general steps to writing an essay. A couple of important essay writing tips ensure that your final submission has no plagiarism, no errors, has a proper citation, and does not divert from the primary topic. Some of the most useful essay writing tips are:

• Plan & Schedule: After coming up with the right topic for the essay, a student must allocate proper time and schedule their research hours. Most of the time, students underestimate the amount of work required to conduct proper research to write a professional essay and end up submitting an essay that will fetch them poor grades. It is always advisable to plan and schedule the essay writing in such a way that they get proper time for researching, and a good amount of time in writing, followed by sufficient time to conduct the second round of editing.
• Structure, Flow, & Focus: If you have not decided on the right flow of your essay, chances are your reader might not be able to relate to it. So, whenever you start writing the essay, ensure that you have properly summarized the core introduction and main body and presented your case that leads towards a proper conclusion. By structuring and focusing on the flow, each section of your essay will add a definitive value to the argument that you are presenting. At the same time, you should also perform multiple revisions just to confirm that the different parts of your essay fit together as a logical whole.
• Proper Style and Formatting: A good essay is about the argument and the narrative structure, but at the same time, the style tends to influence your readers, as that is the very first thing the reader will see when they look at your essay submission. Before writing down the essay, understand the formatting and styling criteria from your professor. You can even consult them about the language guide and the style that you have to follow while submitting the essay. It might look like a very simple or a basic step, but when an author submits an essay that has a proper table of content, introduction pages, bibliography, indexes, annexures, and references, the reader will get an idea that the author has done their proper research before writing the essay.
• Visualize the idea: In most cases, authors start writing the essay as soon as they get an idea. However, if the content is large and the project demands multiple rounds of revisions, it is highly recommended to go ahead and create a mind map. A mind map for essays will help the author visualize the content in a concrete manner. At the same time, by creating a mind map, you will be able to follow the timeline and have sufficient time to make revisions.

5. Key Takeaways

Regardless of the course of study and institution, essay writing is one of the most important curriculum activities for all grades. Even the graduates and postgraduate students need to submit their research paper that somehow starts by writing long-form essays. In this elaborate guide, we walked you through different types of essay writing and helped you understand how making a mind map for an essay is not only a logical activity but also saves you time and other important resources. Instead of wasting your time and money on complicated tools, you should start using EdrawMind, which has hundreds of templates for educational, business, and personal use.

Unlike other tools, EdrawMind has an amazing user interface that provides easy drag-and-drop features. From changing the theme of your mind map to adding different comments in subtopics, you can modify your mind map in any way you desire. So, what are you waiting for? Download EdrawMind today and make a mind map for the essay. You can also try using EdrawMind Online, which comes with a personal cloud.

You May Also Like

Boost your creativity and productivity with brainstorm templates: a comprehensive guide.

EXAMPLES & TEMPLATES

Health Mind Map Complete Guide With 10+ Examples

Personal mind map complete guide with 10+ examples, business mind map complete guide with 30+ examples, mind map ideas for students: explained with 30+ examples, biology concept map complete guide with 30+ examples.

Los Angeles Public Library

• Get a Library Card |
• My Library Account

Every Day is a Gift: A Memoir

It is one woman’s story of growth and achievement, comprised of innumerable personal and professional extremes, of opposing and contradictory experiences that took her to places, jobs and professions that she never ever could have imagined. Her life is like a complex Venn diagram or a mandala, with multiple overlapping layers. On the book jacket, beneath her name, she lists soldier, senator, mother. The life of a soldier propelled her on the road to becoming a senator and a mother.

She is biracial, multiethnic and multilingual. In 1989, from the University of Hawaii she graduated with a B.A. in political science. In 1992, from George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, she received an M.A. in international affairs. She started a PhD program at Northern Illinois University and in 2015 completed a PhD in human services at Capella University. Her doctoral program was interrupted by war service in Iraq in 2004.

Yes, she is a war veteran and a highly decorated one, receiving a Purple Heart, and the Air Medal and Army Commendation Medal for having flown a Black Hawk helicopter in Iraq in 2004. On November 12, 2004, co-piloting a Black Hawk, a rocket-propelled grenade hit her, and she sustained life-threatening injuries, which necessitated double-amputation of her legs, severe damage to tissue and bone in her right arm and fragment damage to her face. There are many miraculous details that she relates about this incident and her arduous road to recovery and healing. She does not remember the moment of impact, but one of her troops stated that throughout her evacuation from the war scene to a military hospital in Baghdad, and to The Landstuhl Regional Medical Center run by the United States Army, she never forgot her troops, and repeatedly asked, “Are you taking care of my men?"

Some other facts about Senator Tammy Duckworth and her family. Her mother is of Chinese descent but her family immigrated to Thailand during Mao’s ascent to power in China. Her mother’s first language is Teochew, the dialect spoken in Chaozhou, but is fluent in Thai. Her father is American, and as a biracial child growing up in Thailand, Duckworth suffered governmentally instituted discrimination, as well as cultural discrimination by Thai people and her mother’s family. She reminds us that in her father’s home state of Virginia, it was not until “ … June 1967, when the Supreme Court decided Loving v. Virginia, that people of different races were allowed to marry there--and even then, prejudice and racism against such relationships lingered.” She knows first-hand about prejudice.

Her family’s life veered from one of great privilege and economic security to extreme poverty and hunger.  In 1974 her father’s communication job for a United Nations Development Programme project took them to Phnom Penh, Cambodia where they lived in a house gated from the outside world, and from which they narrowly escaped the onslaught of the Khmer Rouge. Later her father was in charge of a gated community, Country Woods Estates, in Indonesia, but good luck ran out and she, her brother and father immigrated to Hawaii, leaving her mother behind because of insufficient money for her one-way ticket. Having grown  up in a patriarchal family her father's word was not to be challenged. In Hawaii, he was too proud to take menial jobs, but Tammy was not. When her mother finally was able to rejoin the family in Hawaii, Tammy also understood that it was her mother who had an unerring sense for survival and had the sustained determination to do what was necessary to earn money for her family's well-being. Duckworth is candid and clear about what it is like to be the working poor:

"If you have no money, you can’t get an apartment.  If you don’t have an apartment, you can’t get a job.  You fall into a cycle that, once it starts, is nearly impossible to climb out of ...  My family never worked as hard as when we were living at the poverty line. The notion that the working poor don’t need a living wage, or that they just need to work harder if they want to get ahead, is abhorrent. I can tell you from personal experience [She details that life.], that’s not how life works--even though a whole lot of politicians who’ve never lived in poverty themselves seem to think it is.”

Senator Tammy Duckworth does not spare us details about her life in all its joy and challenges: poverty, racism, sexism, meeting her soul-mate under the most unlikely circumstances, her life as a warrior, her love of flying combat helicopters, her arduous pain-filled recovery from injuries, her determination to walk, her determination to have children, who are beaming lights in her and her husband's lives.  There is humor and raw language that comes from the life of a soldier; there is appreciation for the women who created the pathways to advancement in the military, in medicine, in government, in her family. She also intends to, " ... keep going back, to work with the Iraqi people in hopes of rebuilding their country from the devastation of war. There's a piece of me there, both literally and figuratively, a tie that will bind me to that country forvever." She is a great human being, a leader to whom we can look for solutions to what may seem to be unchangeable conditions and problems.

• Book Bundles To Go
• Branch Periodical Subscription List
• Freegal Music
• L.A. in Focus Videos
• New York Times Digital
• New Books by Genre
• Staff Reviews
• Resources for Readers
• Submit a Suggestion
• Online Resources
• Indie Author Project
• Submission Policy
• Language Collections
• Libby (Overdrive)
• Career Conversations
• Children Chatting
• Poet Laureate
• Read Freely
• Government Documents
• High School Diploma
• Behymer Collection Index
• Bookplate Collection
• Business Magazine Index
• Business & Economics Reference Works
• California Documents Index
• California Fiction Index
• California Index
• California Prints Index
• Casey Fashion Plates
• City Directories Index
• Cookery Ephemera Index
• Environmental Impact Reports
• Genealogy & Local History Index
• Gladys English
• Government Documents - Business
• Japanese Prints Index
• Library Images Index
• Lummis Autograph Collection Index
• Menu Collection
• Native American Index
• Obituary Index
• Orchestration Catalog
• Play File Index
• Public Art Index
• Series and Sequels
• Short Story File Index
• Theater Program Collection
• Toy Movable Database
• Turnabout Theater Archive
• LinkedIn Learning
• Online Learning
• Aerial Photographs
• African -American Literature (PDF)
• African-American Ingenuity
• Bilingual English-Spanish Material (PDF)
• Book Reports
• Census Tract Maps (PDF)
• Financing New Business (PDF)
• Food and Drink
• History of Your House
• Holiday Cookery
• Image Locator
• Job Hunting and Money Guides
• Literary Criticism Locator
• Map Collection
• Maps of Los Angeles
• Military and Industry Standards and Specifications
• Obituaries in LA County
• Philosophy Research
• Play Locator
• Poem Locator
• Representative Maps in Los Angeles History and Growth
• Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlases
• Sheet Music Locator
• Short Story Locator
• Small Business Research (PDF)
• Treaty Research
• Valuation of Collectibles
• Vital Records
• Student Success
• Shades of L.A. Oral Histories
• Web Resources
• ADA Services
• Adult Literacy
• Ask a Librarian
• Overview & Permits
• Cell-Ed Pathways
• Resources & Links
• Small Business Help
• Book a Librarian
• Community Outreach
• Explore L.A.
• Free Take-Home Covid-19 Test Kits
• Health Matters
• Homeless Resources
• Jobs, Money & Small Business
• New Americans
• Reentry Resources
• Reserve a Computer
• State Park Pass
• Veterans Resources
• Wireless Printing
• Voter Information
• Babies & Toddlers
• Big Read 2024
• Bilingual Events
• Celebrations
• Expedition L.A.
• One Book, One County
• All Branches
• Art, Music, & Recreation Department
• Business and Economics Department
• Children's Literature Department
• Computer Center
• Appointment Request Form
• Californiana
• Gifts/Donations
• Introduction to Special Collections
• Photographs
• The Rare Books Room Story
• History & Genealogy Department
• International Languages Department
• Literature & Fiction Department
• Low-Vision Service Centers
• Popular Library
• Science, Technology, & Patents Department
• Social Science, Philosophy & Religion Department
• Teen'Scape
• Historical Portraits Project
• Goodhue Building
• The Literate Fence Quotations
• Themes and Inscriptions
• Tom Bradley Wing
• Central Library Docent Tours
• Central Library Virtual Tour
• Rates & Occupancy
• Holiday Closures
• Become a Friend of the Library
• Join the Library Foundation of Los Angeles
• Make a Donation
• Shop The Library Store
• Agendas and Minutes
• Agendas & Minutes Archive
• Board Members
• Borrower Services
• City Librarian
• Connect With Us
• eCard Registration
• infoNow (Ask A Librarian)
• Change of Address
• Suggest a Purchase
• Technical Problems
• Your Library Story
• Library Card Pre-Registration
• Verify Student Success Card
• Solicitud de tarjeta electrónica
• Pregúntale a un bibliotecario
• Formulario de cambio de dirección
• Sugerir una Compra
• Solicitud de tarjeta
• Diversity and Inclusion Apprenticeship
• Jobs & Business Opportunities
• Perform at LAPL
• Press Release Archive
• Press Images - Branch Libraries
• Press Images - Central Library
• Rules of Conduct
• Staff Directory
• Volunteer Opportunities
• Angel City Press
• ¿Qué hay de nuevo?
• Títulos recomendados
• Kids & Parents
• Online Privacy Policy

TALK WITH SHIVI

Every Day is a Gift Essay

In the hustle and bustle of our daily routines, it is easy to overlook the profound truth that each day is a unique and irreplaceable gift. The gift of a new day is not a guarantee but a blessing that graces us with the opportunity to make a difference, to learn, to love, and to contribute to the world in our own meaningful way.

Life is a series of moments, and each day is a collection of these fleeting instances that shape our narrative. It’s in the seemingly ordinary moments – the smile exchanged with a stranger, the warmth of a loved one’s embrace, the quiet contemplation during a sunrise – that the true beauty of life resides. These moments are the threads that weave together the fabric of our existence.

Every day offers a blank canvas on which we can paint the strokes of our aspirations and dreams. It is a chance to set new goals, to challenge ourselves, and to strive for personal growth. The gift of a new day invites us to cast aside the burdens of yesterday and embrace the limitless possibilities of today. As the saying goes, “The future starts today, not tomorrow.”

Moreover, every day provides an opportunity for gratitude. Gratitude for the breath we take, for the senses that allow us to perceive the world, and for the relationships that enrich our lives. Taking a moment to appreciate the simple pleasures, from the aroma of fresh coffee to the sound of birdsong, enhances our awareness of the richness inherent in every day.

The concept of each day being a gift also underscores the importance of mindfulness. Living in the present moment allows us to savor the experiences, to be fully engaged in the here and now. It encourages us to let go of worries about the future or regrets from the past, focusing instead on the unique blessings of the present day.

However, the acknowledgment that every day is a gift also comes with a sense of responsibility. It prompts us to use our time wisely, to make meaningful choices, and to cultivate a positive impact on the world around us. The gift of today is not just for our own enjoyment but an opportunity to contribute to the well-being of others and to leave a positive mark on the world.

In conclusion, recognizing that every day is a gift transforms our perspective on life. It instills in us a sense of gratitude, mindfulness, and purpose. Embracing each day with a heart full of appreciation and a spirit ready for the possibilities ensures that we make the most of this beautiful gift called life.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

English Compositions

Essay on Life is a Gift [200, 500 Words] With PDF

Life is precious. In this lesson, you will learn to write essays in two different sets on life as a gift. It will help you in articulating your thoughts in the upcoming exams.

Table of Contents

Essay on life is a gift in 200 words, essay on life is a gift in 500 words.

A gift is viewed as something unique, valuable, and mysterious. Life is the most priceless and precious gift our parents have bestowed upon us. It’s a fascinating journey full of adventures with unknown and unexpected elements. It can fill us with love, happiness, and a feeling of purpose.

Life is an art for some, which they wish to paint in vibrant colours, while it is a science for others, which must be mastered with discipline and punctuality. While some people squander their life on worthless pursuits, others find meaning in the most insignificant objects and circumstances. We are gifted with the five senses to experience life sensuously.

We must recognise its significance and strive to develop ourselves daily. Our activities, as is commonly stated, purify our souls. Some of us devote our lives to doing good things, while others squander them in the hope of greater results. While some have good intentions, others are out to harm. Life is full of both good and painful experiences. We must not give up if we have had an unpleasant or unpalatable experience in life. It’s important to remember that it’s just transitory and that with perseverance, it can be conquered.

A gift is regarded as special, valuable, and mysterious. Life is the most precious gift that our parents have given us. It is a delightful journey packed with adventures containing unknown and unanticipated elements. It has the tremendous potential to provide us with love, happiness, and a sense of meaning. For some, life is an art they want to paint in wonderful colours, while for others, life is a science that must be mastered with discipline and punctuality.

While there are people who waste their lives in meaningless endeavours, there are others who fetch meaning from the most futile objects and situations. We are gifted with the five senses to experience life sensuously. We must understand its importance and work hard to improve ourselves every day. It is often said that our actions purify our souls. Some of us dedicate our lives to performing good deeds, whereas others spoil it in the hope of getting better results. While some have ethical intentions, others have evil objectives. Every day is a gift to learn new things and enjoy the new experience. 

We must embed our lives with the people we love. We must preach kindness. If we are kind to one another and respect humanity, life will be kind to us and appreciate our existence. We all should have a motto that shall help us make this earth a better place. We must work on the legacy we wish to leave behind us. It must be something that would be cherished by the ones who know the ones who are strangers to us and us. 

Living life is not easy. Some days are tough and demanding, and it takes courage to sail through them. On such days, remembering the struggles of people who had come before us and did not give up in the face of hardships will encourage us. Life almost always offers us a wide range of options. However, we must make our choices wisely.

We must be guided by reason, and we should be passionate about all the activities we indulge in. Our sheer determination can make the impossible possible. We must have faith and promise to give our best in all situations. We should also allow ourselves leisure to take vacations, practice sport, work on our hobbies, read and write. As William Henry Davies puts it in the poem Leisure, 

“What is this life, full of care? We have no time to stand and stare.” We must never limit ourselves in our scope of doing something. 

After all, life is not a bed full of roses, but it gives occasional prickly thorns in our pathway, which we must tread carefully. We can take the flower lily as an inspiration. Although it lasts for a brief period, its aroma creates a freshening and beautiful environment. Living life honourably is the duty of every human being. We must spend our life inspiring others with thoughts that stir ecstasy. We must apprehend that life is a gift and not a burden.

Hopefully, after going through this lesson, you have a holistic idea of the value of life and the ideal way of living it. I have tried to cover every aspect of the topic briefly and in an expanded form. If you still have any doubts regarding this session, kindly let me know through the comment section below. To read more such essays on many important topics, keep browsing our website. 

Join us on Telegram to get the latest updates on our upcoming sessions. Thank you, see you again soon.

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

Every Day Is A Gift.pdf

its just beginning of what i think about life.

Related Papers

Valerie C H E E R S Brown

In these moments while the document loads and my fingers rest on the keyboard grant me first an emptiness. Remove the to-do list that waits impatiently in the corner of my mind. Quiet the voice saying, "You're not ready, you're not good enough, you don't have anything to say." Shield me from the imagined judgmental gaze of my advisor. Grant me first an emptiness, an openness, a mind unchained by anxiety. Grant me then a fullness. Where insecurity lurks, pour out confidence and curiosity. Where there is fatigue, fill me with generosity and energy. Where there is fear, fill me with courage. Shelter me in your strength and quiet the world around me. For these few hours grant me peace and solitude in my thoughts. Bless this mind you've given and help me use it fully. Help me seek and push the limits of my abilities. Remind me that I have read enough, I have enough, I am enough, and with time this paper will come to a place where it, too, is enough (at least for now).

Joseph Mutisya

Saving grace is irresistible.

JOHN MOHAN RAZU

A write of mine entitled Ray of Hope in the Midst of Anxieties

Khaliun Enkhbat

waliullah Raiyan

Antonio Dorta Fortes

Vasundhara Raghavan

I had the chance to be associated with kidney disease twice before my fiftieth year. The first time, it involved my friend Malathi. We were barely ten years old, so my understanding of the disease was very limited. All I could make out was that it had simply led to instant death. The death of a dear friend at an impressionable age was a great blow. The killer disease, which gradually attacked and destroyed five of the seven children in that family, was mystifying. This was in 1962, when treatment for this disease was probably unheard of in Bombay (Mumbai), India’s commercial capital. As I grew up, the unhappy memory of my friend receded. I bounced back to life, enjoyed my youth, entered womanhood, settled into marriage, and looked forward to ‘magical happiness’ ever after. Very soon reality hit me; I learned that life was a journey of challenges. It made good sense to confront them as they surfaced. But my life’s experiences had done little to prepare me to meet the second episode of kidney disease, the one that changed the way I breathed. My son was stricken by this disease… I asked myself then, “Why should I presume that it would be different for me?” While embarking on a cure for this killer disease I gathered a lot of valuable information. With the singular purpose of spreading this information, I became serious about my project of writing a book on my journey through this disease. February 2004 saw the birth of Shades of Life: Living With Kidney Failure. The concept was good, the sentiments even better, but it was extremely difficult to put pen to paper to write about the harsh facts of life. But the purpose was not to entertain, but to inform. Reminding myself every day about what I was here to deliver, I worked my way through the book. It could help kidney patients to understand the enormity of the disease, be better prepared to meet the ordeal, find a solution to a life-threatening problem, and find a way to save their kidney. Reports from most countries in the world shows conclusive evidence that many adults are at risk of losing their kidney functions. Not many are aware that they are below the radar. Low awareness is seen as the primary factor leading to increasing incidence of end-stage renal failure among individuals within certain demographic parameters such as age, sex, ethnicity, education, and medical conditions like hypertension. In some cases, awareness could be preventive; in others, it can be curative; and there will be some for whom it will mean a lifetime of health care. The hope that people will be able to live, and continue to enjoy life, is the fine print. I hope my family’s story will give the reader reason to lead life with awareness and sensitivity. I read somewhere that life is a great big canvas on which one can paint one’s dreams and see them blossom. The basic sketch gets a frame where events of the day are captured with pencil marks. Finally, with many more sketches, a complex picture of a person’s life emerges. There are some grid lines, fitted with intricate lines to make this picture a good, realistic portrait: simple, smooth, thin lines depict fun and happiness, reflecting cheerfulness and flamboyance. Sharp, thick lines mark difficult periods of sorrow, failures, and hardships. Vibrant colours add to the hue and complement the drawing. Different shades of colour bring the portrait to life. This is what life is, I surmised — a fine portrait, and each one is different from the other. None of them are better or worse, as there is equal opportunity for each one to be a winner. The portrait is as alive as it can be. It has flesh. Red blood flows through it. The heart beats. Love and laughter express joy. Songs are sung. Anger shakes the form and figure. And so we live on, with all expressions and emotions embedded in the portrait. The portrait needs to be preserved till the end, as it is ordained. Every effort is needed to keep it safe and nurture it with utmost love and care . It is the life of a human being that we are preserving. The picture of life is painted by one, but due to the intense and close interactions between many people who directly or indirectly influence our lives, the etchings are sometimes darker and deeper. If one were to step aside and study the painting, it would be tempting to erase some of those dark, ugly lines. But the journey through life is one template that cannot be modified. This understanding shaped Shades of Life: Living With Kidney Failure.

Toothless Blck

It's not property of mine all copyright belons to jordan peterson

john korsmo

One challenge experienced by many educators working in pre-professional programs involves designing courses to support students as they learn how to apply subject area knowledge to professional practice. This article describes a successful collaborative community-based project that contextualizes the often abstract and predominately linear theories of human development through the creation of life books for children in the foster care system. The learning activity includes upper division undergraduate Human Services students reviewing case files, contacting, interviewing, and meeting with members of the adoptive child’s families, researching the child’s medical background, and documenting the child’s life story to date. This method supports students’ understanding of human development within the context of the systems in which they will be working.

Mike Viteri

RELATED PAPERS

bibitalpukat unggul

Journal of Geometry and Physics

Harald Grosse

Thomas Tribunella

Susana Jorge

Cecilia Indri Kurniasari, Ns.,M.Kep

Eduardo Lopez

Dr. Najmaldin E . Hassan

Gustavo Rosell

Salvador Iranzo

Prosiding Pendidikan Dokter; Vol 5, No 1, Prosiding Pendidikan Dokter (Februari, 2019); 249-254

Fathiya Ainul Mardhiyah

JPMA. The Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association

Shakir Hussain

Communications in Partial Differential Equations

Zdzislaw Brzezniak

Christa Fonatsch

Elena Soare

BMC Geriatrics

Kanokporn Pinyopornpanish

Cornell University - arXiv

Ayush Jaiswal

Ophthalmologica

Jos Escobar

Computational and Applied Mathematics

Giovanni Angiulli

Revista De Ciencias Sociales

Francisco J. Cuberos-Gallardo

Mariline Candeias

Dietmar Plenz

Sergey Sukhankin

Veronica Jorge Babo Terra

Acta Veterinaria Brno

Ľubor Košťál

Inorganica Chimica Acta

Dr Hargyan Singh

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

• Biographies & Memoirs
• Leaders & Notable People

Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime Try Prime and start saving today with fast, free delivery

Amazon Prime includes:

Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.

• Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
• Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
• Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
• A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
• Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
• Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access

Important:  Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.

Buy new: .savingPriceOverride { color:#CC0C39!important; font-weight: 300!important; } .reinventMobileHeaderPrice { font-weight: 400; } #apex_offerDisplay_mobile_feature_div .reinventPriceSavingsPercentageMargin, #apex_offerDisplay_mobile_feature_div .reinventPricePriceToPayMargin { margin-right: 4px; } -34% $19.70 $ 19 . 70 FREE delivery Monday, May 20 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35 Ships from: Amazon Sold by: HBBC STORE

Return this item for free.

Free returns are available for the shipping address you chose. You can return the item for any reason in new and unused condition: no shipping charges

• Go to your orders and start the return
• Select the return method

Save with Used - Good .savingPriceOverride { color:#CC0C39!important; font-weight: 300!important; } .reinventMobileHeaderPrice { font-weight: 400; } #apex_offerDisplay_mobile_feature_div .reinventPriceSavingsPercentageMargin, #apex_offerDisplay_mobile_feature_div .reinventPricePriceToPayMargin { margin-right: 4px; } $13.99 $ 13 . 99 FREE delivery Sunday, May 19 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35 Ships from: Amazon Sold by: BeardsBooks

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Follow the author

Image Unavailable

• To view this video download Flash Player

Every Day Is a Gift: A Memoir Hardcover – March 30, 2021

Purchase options and add-ons.

• Print length 288 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Twelve
• Publication date March 30, 2021
• Dimensions 6.45 x 1.35 x 9.35 inches
• ISBN-10 1538718502
• ISBN-13 978-1538718506
• See all details

Frequently bought together

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

From the Publisher

Editorial reviews, about the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Twelve (March 30, 2021)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1538718502
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1538718506
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.1 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.45 x 1.35 x 9.35 inches
• #21 in U.S.Congresses, Senates & Legislative
• #482 in Political Leader Biographies
• #3,350 in Memoirs (Books)

About the author

Tammy duckworth.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

• Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

Top reviews from other countries

• Amazon Newsletter
• About Amazon
• Accessibility
• Sustainability
• Press Center
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell on Amazon
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Supply to Amazon
• Protect & Build Your Brand
• Become an Affiliate
• Become a Delivery Driver
• Start a Package Delivery Business
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Become an Amazon Hub Partner
• › See More Ways to Make Money
• Amazon Visa
• Amazon Store Card
• Amazon Secured Card
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Credit Card Marketplace
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Amazon Prime
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices
• Recalls and Product Safety Alerts
• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

Every Day is a Gift

“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Psalm 90:12, NIV

Sometimes, our days can be so full and busy that we forget how fragile life really is. It can be easy to allow little things to creep in and steal our peace and joy. Maybe something doesn’t go your way, or someone says something upsetting. Even traffic can cause us to lose focus if we let it. We have to remember that each day is a gift. If we choose to focus on what’s wrong, we’ll miss the beauty that each day has to offer.

I encourage you today to not let the precious moments of life pass you by. Don’t wait for holidays and birthdays to show people that you care. Remember, each day is unique and irreplaceable. You have been given time that can be invested or wasted, hours that can be used or misused. That’s why the psalmist prayed to God, “Teach us to number our days.” He was saying, “Teach us to value every moment that we’ve been given.” As you daily keep a proper perspective, you’ll gain a heart of wisdom and experience the full blessing that He has for you each and every day!

“Father, thank You for the gift of today. I choose to focus on the blessing of each moment instead of allowing the little things to steal my joy. Keep me close to You always as I submit every area of my heart and mind to You in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

(Joel & Victoria Osteen)

  daily inspiring scriptures , daily inspiring words , daily prayer , every day is a gift , inspiring scripture , inspiring word , joel osteen , NIV , Psalm 90:12 , victoria osteen

Psalm , scriptures & prayers.

Essay on My Best Gift

Students are often asked to write an essay on My Best Gift in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on My Best Gift

Introduction.

The joy of receiving gifts is immeasurable. Among all the gifts I have received, one stands out as the best.

The Best Gift

My best gift was a book, gifted by my grandmother on my 10th birthday. It wasn’t just any book, but a collection of inspiring stories.

Why It’s Special

This book is special because it ignited my love for reading. Each story taught me valuable lessons about life.

The best gifts aren’t always the most expensive ones. They are those that leave a lasting impact on our lives, just like my book.

250 Words Essay on My Best Gift

Gifts hold a unique place in our lives, often serving as markers of significant moments or relationships. The best gifts are not necessarily the most expensive, but those that carry profound emotional value. For me, the best gift I’ve ever received is a small, worn-out notebook from my grandmother, a gift that has shaped my life in unimaginable ways.

The Gift’s Significance

The notebook, filled with my grandmother’s handwritten recipes, is more than just a collection of dishes. It is a testament to her love for cooking and a symbol of her desire to pass on the family’s culinary heritage. She had spent years perfecting those recipes, and her gift was a way of entrusting me with a piece of our family’s history.

Impact of the Gift

The notebook has significantly influenced my life. It sparked a passion for cooking that I was previously unaware of. I found joy in replicating the recipes, each dish bringing me closer to my roots and instilling a sense of connection to my family. The notebook also taught me the value of preserving traditions and the importance of sharing them with future generations.

In conclusion, the best gift I’ve ever received is not valuable in monetary terms, but it is priceless in its emotional significance. It represents a tangible link to my family’s past and a guide for preserving our traditions. It is a gift that has shaped my interests, values, and identity. The notebook from my grandmother is not just a collection of recipes; it is a cherished keepsake, a source of inspiration, and undoubtedly, my best gift.

500 Words Essay on My Best Gift

Gifts are a universal way to express emotions such as love, appreciation, and gratitude. Throughout our lives, we receive various gifts, but some hold a special place in our hearts. The best gift I ever received was not wrapped in shiny paper or tied with a colorful ribbon, but was a profound life experience that forever changed my perspective.

The Unexpected Gift

The best gift I ever received was a two-week trip to a remote village in Africa, a gift from my parents on my eighteenth birthday. Initially, I was perplexed, even disappointed. I had expected a car, a gadget, or a lavish party, but instead, I was given an experience that seemed unexciting. Little did I know, this trip would be the most valuable gift I’d ever receive.

Experiencing a Different World

In the remote village, I was exposed to a world far removed from the comforts of my urban life. The villagers lived in humble huts, tilled their fields manually, fetched water from wells, and cooked on open fires. There were no shopping malls, no internet, and no fast food. Initially, it was a culture shock. But as the days passed, I began to understand the essence of their lifestyle.

Lessons from Simplicity

The villagers taught me the beauty of simplicity. They found joy in the simplest things – a good harvest, a community gathering, a starlit sky. They were content with what they had, and they shared generously. Their sense of community was profound; they worked together, celebrated together, and supported each other in times of need. The happiness and contentment they derived from their simple lives were eye-opening.

Valuing What Matters

This experience taught me to value relationships and experiences over material possessions. I realized that the relentless pursuit of material wealth often leads to stress and discontentment. On the other hand, the villagers, with their simple lives and strong community bonds, seemed happier and more content. This realization was a paradigm shift for me, making me reconsider what I truly valued in life.

In retrospect, the trip to the African village was the best gift I ever received. It was not a material possession that would lose its value over time, but an experience that enriched my life and broadened my perspective. It taught me the importance of simplicity, contentment, and community – lessons that continue to shape my life. This gift from my parents was indeed a profound life experience, a gift that keeps on giving.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Gift
• Essay on Geography
• Essay on Today’s Generation

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Happy studying!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Make a Change Blog

Get out of your rut and make the change you need to live a more productive and fulfilling life!

“Each day comes bearing its own gifts. Untie the ribbons.”—Ruth Ann Schabaker

December 1, 2009 By Nancy Christie 3 Comments

How do you start your day? Do you wake up, expecting the worst, complaining about the hour, grousing about your aches and pains or anticipating all the problems you have to face?

Or do you open your eyes and spend even just a minute or two being grateful for where you are and who you are, appreciating the fact that you exist and that options (limited or endless) are available to you?

Not to sound too Pollyanna (although in these difficult times, a little of the “bright-side” thinking can help a lot!), but how you start your day will influence what kind of day you will have.

Focus on what is (or could be) wrong with your life and that is all you will see. But look at each day as an opportunity to make a change in your own life or someone else’s or a chance to find something new and wonderful and meaningful in your day and you will find an endless array of “gifts” just waiting to be opened.

It’s not that you are denying the reality of your situation. Rather you are expanding your view of it, looking beyond what is wrong or painful or frightening to find what is still right and hopeful and full of wonder.

August 26, 2017 at 2:07 pm

I found this quote ar a Weight Watchers meeting today and it appealed to me. I Googled it and it led me here. I enjoyed this post.

August 26, 2017 at 3:17 pm

Glad you liked it! Check out the rest of the blog posts too!

January 31, 2019 at 3:57 am

I read this year and years ago I even had a beautiful picture with this on it, not to go into detail but it has came to mind so many tome in my life and I so thankful. God is good and this is the day the Lord has made rejoice and be glad in it.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

By using this form you agree with the storage and handling of your data by this website. *

• What the <i>Black Twitter</i> Docuseries Gets Wrong

What the  Black Twitter  Docuseries Gets Wrong

B lack Twitter will not save us for what’s to come. As the days towards the 2024 presidential election draw near and the rage-filled screams of college students fill the halls of the nation’s most prestigious institutions, the United States finds itself at a crossroads. Will the most powerful country in the world revert back to when Donald Trump won the White House, or will we vote for Joe Biden to maintain his stronghold? This is the question that every American must answer before and on November 5.

If the everyday American (specifically the everyday Black American) was undecided about which candidate to vote for, it only takes one watch of Black Twitter: A People’s History , a three part docuseries based on journalist Jason Parham’s 2021 WIRED article “ A People’s History of Black Twitter ,” to understand that we must vote for Biden.

The series attempts to archive, document, and chronicle the force that is known as Black Twitter, two words that have been used to characterize Black digital life on the social media platform. It’s a platform that the series will remind you was not created by Black people, but brought into prominence by the attitudes, mannerisms, and behaviors of Black users on Twitter. But despite incessant commentary about how Black people are not a monolith, the docuseries—in its attempt to associate the Black Twitter community with an era that supposedly no longer exists—ultimately treats Black Twitter as such.

Creation is at the core of the series’ story. The words of Amiri Baraka’s " Technology & Ethos " essay are repeated and paraphrased throughout the three-part series in a fashion similar to a mother reading her child’s favorite tall tale before tucking them into bed. The essay opens with the following: “Machines (as Norbert Weiner said) are an extension of their inventor-creators. That is not simple once you think. Machines, the entire technology of the West, is just that, the technology of the West.” Baraka continues: “Nothing has to look or function the way it does. The West man’s freedom, unscientifically got at the expense of the rest of the world’s people, has allowed him to xpand his mind–spread his sensibility wherever it cdgo, & so shaped the world, & its powerful artifact-engines.”

The next line is where Black Twitter, or more broadly the relationship between Black people and technology, come into play. “Political power is also the power to create—not only what you will—but to be freed to go where ever you can go—(mentally physically as well). Black creation—creation powered by the Black ethos brings very special results.”

In the case of both Twitter the platform and also Twitter the company—where Black people acquired leadership positions at one of the fastest growing tech companies in the world, used their presence online to enact change in the areas of racial justice and police reform, and increased diversity and representation from Hollywood to Silicon Valley and everywhere in between—what did those very special results bring? That answer is complicated, and one that the docuseries tries to grapple with but falls short.

As seen in the series, #OscarsSoWhite corrected a decades long practice of exclusion by the Academy and created opportunities for actors of color to receive membership into the voting body that decides the Oscars. In the nine years since the hashtag’s creation, gradual efforts were made towards greater representation on screen. Yet, the subsequent mass exodus of women of color in Hollywood leadership positions and the low number of films directed by women and people of color seems to contradict the docuseries’ overarching narrative of a hashtag's singular impact. Yes, the hashtag narrative as an idiom to bring forth change is powerful, but the counter response to them is just as telling.

The most blatant example of this is the #BlackLivesMatter portion of the docuseries. The docuseries chronicles the pivotal role Twitter played in the rise of citizen journalism, particularly during the murders of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner. It also looks at the creation of #SayHerName, a social media response to the erasure of Black women, such as Sandra Bland, and Black trans women, like Mya Hall, who lost their lives to police violence, but were often overlooked by the male-centered BLM movement.

This is where Baraka is felt the most: Black creators have harnessed the power of technology, in order to counteract the West’s political power, which puts them in danger of losing their lives. Minute after minute, frame after frame, the docuseries asks the viewer to bear witness to the ways in which Black Twitter, through the creation and utilization of hashtags, on-the-ground reporting, and 24/7 news coverage, has long been victimized by police violence.

But like Baraka said, the machine is an extension of its inventor-creator, and the creator, or in this case the executive producers of the docuseries, have a hand in its invention. It's a creation that feels foreign to those who birthed and have maintained Black Twitter as a living and breathing cultural archive of Black digital life. A life that has no singular partisan belief or political agenda. A life that, in many ways, bites the hand of the docuseries creators. It’s a hand that delicately weaves the ascension of Barack Obama to the presidency with the birth and rise of Black Twitter. The two are in a covenant of holy matrimony.

Just ask Brad Jenkins, former associate director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, who frequently appears throughout the docuseries. Or Carri Twigg, the former Associate Director of Public Engagement of the White House, who serves as one of the series’ executive producers. There is no direct mention that the Black Lives Matter movement started under the Obama administration—or acknowledgment of the overwhelming collective action by Black students at the University of Missouri during that time, as well as the solidarity actions that occurred across college campuses in the U.S.

The series goes on to connect the rise of misinformation, the proliferation of Russian bots, and the 2016 election of Donald Trump as a reaction to the Obama presidency and Black Twitter. In fact, the series’ somber moments—where anti-Black sentiment is seen in reports of algorithms being altered to increase traffic towards users that display racist and misogynistic behaviors online, and clips of white women calling the police to inflict harm and violence on Black people for simply living — are linked to the Trump portion of the series. But that is ahistorical in and of itself because Black women have been calling attention to the ways in which they are subjected to anti-Black violence and harassment online since the 1990s . BBQ Becky is just Carolyn Bryant by another name.

Read More: Twitter Offers More Transparency on Racist Abuse by Its Users, but Few Solutions

If the Obama years of Black Twitter were fun, the docuseries posits, the Trump years of Black Twitter were hell. From the COVID-19 pandemic to the global uprisings over the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, the year 2020 within the docuseries is marked by culture shifts towards violence, including the misogynoir Megan Thee Stallion experienced online after she came forward about being physically assaulted by Tory Lanez. The year is also peppered with glimmers of a Black Twitter of yesteryear: a communal moment of gathering to live tweet “Verzuz” challenges or to watch The Last Dance as a family. Communal moments that are thought to be associated with the Obama administration.

And just like that, the docuseries pivots to showcase the Black voters in South Carolina, who are thanked for their votes for Biden in the 2020 election. Biden is even described as Obama’s right hand man. It is in this moment that the series wants the audience to remember the joy of the Obama years, the hope of the Obama years, and most importantly, the impact of Black voters in the Obama years.

I do not mean to spoil the climax of the 2020 section of the docuseries, but Biden won and Elon Musk replaced Trump as the villain of the series. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, now known as X, is met with despair, exodus, and rage. Efforts to humble and humiliate Musk are flashed across the screen as former Black employees at Twitter in one-on-one interviews discuss the destruction of their years of labor and hard work to diversify the platform. Black academics, celebrities, and personalities lament as they say a goodbye to the good days of Twitter. Mastodon, BlueSky, Spill, LinkedIn, and of course TikTok are depicted as places of solace for Black users who feel unwelcome on X. (X has since eliminated any protections for marginalized and disenfranchised users on the platforms.)

Four years after the election of Biden to the presidency and with the forthcoming election looming, the series bids Black Twitter adieu with the foresight that Black people will always continue to innovate, despite not being given the tools or resources to create. This is exemplified by a reference to soul food, and a call to action to create our own archives—the thesis of Black Twitter: A People’s History.

But what Black Twitter fails to realize—and simply can’t capture—is that we are not in 2008 anymore. Or 2012. Or 2020. The Obama coalition is dead. The Biden coalition is falling apart by the day and culturally resonant programming falls flat compared to the citizen-led reporting that is coming to life in front of our very eyes. Just look at the actions of the student journalists at WKCR , the Columbia University radio station that covered the raid of Hamilton Hall by the New York Police Department. Or the wave of anti-war protests by Black students at HBCUs. Guess where these students learned how to organize from? Black Twitter. They’re not just archiving their own stories—they’re creating them.

But that’s the flaw of content like this. It doesn’t have the capacity to capture the legacy of a movement because it’s a movement that isn't over. It is still unfurling—still morphing and coming to life in front of our very eyes. These are children who came of age on Black Twitter. They’re still using those tools to make us laugh, to inspire change, to create community.

If there is anyone who will save us (and in turn, if there’s anything worth saving), it's them. Not Black Twitter.

More Must-Reads From TIME

• What Student Photojournalists Saw at the Campus Protests
• Women Say They Were Pressured Into Long-Term Birth Control
• How Far Trump Would Go
• Scientists Are Finding Out Just How Toxic Your Stuff Is
• Boredom Makes Us Human
• John Mulaney Has What Late Night Needs
• The 100 Most Influential People of 2024
• Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

Contact us at [email protected]

• Share full article

For more audio journalism and storytelling, download New York Times Audio , a new iOS app available for news subscribers.

¡Hola Papi!, Does My Grandmother Need to Know I’m Gay?

Ahead of mother’s day, the advice columnist john paul brammer (a.k.a. ¡hola papi) has a reminder: loving your abuela doesn’t have to mean telling her everything..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

Love now and always.

Did you fall in love last time?

Love is stronger than anything.

For the love of —

And I love you more than anything.

(SINGING) What is love?

Here’s to love.

From “The New York Times,” I’m Anna Martin. This is Modern Love. Today on the show author and advice columnist, John Paul Brammer. John Paul has built his career answering people’s burning questions about love and relationships in his column Hola Papi.

Hola, Papi, I suck at first dates. Hola, Papi, is my crush just leading me on? Hola, Papi, is it a bad idea to live with my ex? Hola, Papi, I came out. No one cares.

The column runs in New York Magazine, but it didn’t start there. It began on a blog started by Grindr.

Grindr is an app that is known for young gay professionals seeking love. And I’m putting that nicely. [LAUGHS]

Is that their official tagline?

Not at all.

Young gay professionals.

That’s what I tell people — that’s what I tell straight people when I’m back in Oklahoma.

To decode what John Paul’s saying, Grindr is a hookup app mostly used by gay men. And to him, that felt like the perfect place to source a ton of problems.

I’m using the inexhaustible well of gay drama here. So I was like, oh my God, I’ll never run out of stuff to write about.

What kind of questions did you get?

There were ones that were as simple as, like, I moved to a big city and I still can’t find friends or a boyfriend and I’m lonely. But then there were ones that were really quite dire, like oh, I’m into my coworker and he’s giving me some signs that he might be into me as well, but we’re in a country where homosexuality is illegal and I don’t know what to do. And I’m sitting there, like, I’m sitting there in a coffee shop in Chelsea like, I don’t know how to answer this.

Wow. I mean, so how would you respond?

I don’t want to try to pass myself off as a therapist or an expert, but I kind of drew on my own background of, OK, well, who are the people who gave me advice when I was first coming into the gay community? I’d just come out. I was getting the lay of the land. Who were my mentors? And it was really informal in Oklahoma. They were just guys at the gay bars that I met and there were old queens there who would kind of take me under their wing and be like, here’s how we do things. Here’s the kind of guys to look out for. And I thought, OK, I can do that. I can be an informal mentor figure that you meet at a bar.

OK, so John Paul, before we get into the essay you chose to read today, I wanted to ask you about a question you got recently that’s very timely, because it’s Mother’s Day this week. It was from someone who called herself Helicopter Mom. And she writes that her son is 29, he has his first real boyfriend, and she feels super protective of him. So the question she asks you is, what is the best way I can support my son while he’s navigating his first relationship?

Yeah. It just sounded like she was really afraid of the human condition, which is that in the human condition, we’re vulnerable creatures. We’re going to get hurt in life. And I think that when we love someone, especially a child, I have to imagine, and you take a look at the world that they’re stepping into and you just wish that you could shield them from things and you wish that you could protect them from harm.

But making peace with that is sort of a — it can be really difficult to do. But I think trying to make the case to this mom that we learn to live by living, and it’s through disappointment and hardship that we open ourselves up to wisdom and change and growth.

Do you remember a specific moment where your own mom or grandma was overpowered by their protective impulse for you, kind of like Helicopter Mom in this letter?

Oh gosh, yeah. And it’s not super characteristic of my mom. But I grew up in rural Oklahoma, very rural area. And I went to college like an hour and a half away. And so I was able to visit all the time. And so I finally got a writing job after I graduated that was going to take me to DC. And I was going to move pretty far away. I mean, that’s a big leap from rural Oklahoma.

And I think that it made my mom kind of nervous, because both she and my dad accompanied me to my first trip to DC. And I was going to meet my roommates, but my mom just had to go with me, like absolutely. It was like, no, I want to make sure that you’re going to be in a place that’s safe and I want to see these people for myself. And something about having five roommates around my age in this new big city really spooked her, I think. And so I did bring my mom, and believe it or not, they did not ask me to live with them.

That is so sweet of your mom to support you, even if she’s nervous about your decision to move. And John Paul, you’re actually kind of helping me out, because that story reminds me of the Modern Love essay you chose to read today.

Absolutely.

It’s by Kevin Hershey. But in his case, Kevin is watching his grandmother make a big decision that he has to accept. And like your mom, Kevin’s way of supporting his grandmother through her decision is by being there for her along the way. The essay’s called, “Young, Gay, and Single Among The Nuns and Widows.”

And before we hear the essay, do you think you could come up with an Hola Papi pen name for Kevin? Kind of like Helicopter Mom. I know I’m putting you on the spot. I know you can do it. I can also brainstorm with you.

OK, yeah, so my mind immediately needs to play with the nun aspect of the whole thing. So —

What about Getting Nun, but it’s N-U-N, like not having sex, but then —

Oh, that’s a really, really good one. I’m jealous that that one didn’t come to my brain. Yes, I mean, it has to be Getting Nun.

Getting Nun. The Hola Papi pen name for Kevin Hershey is Getting Nun. That’s again N-U-N. It’ll make sense once we hear John Paul read the essay. How about you take it away?

“Young, Gay, and Single Among the Nuns and Widows” by Kevin Hershey.

When I graduated from college in Portland, Oregon, eight years ago, I dreamed of taking my Spanish major and spirit of adventure and moving abroad, where I would quickly acquire a gay lover who would introduce me to new languages, foods, and sex. Instead, I moved back home to Saint Paul, Minnesota, and into my Irish grandmother’s Catholic senior living apartment, where she and I barely spoke and where she, at least, didn’t eat. At 90, having lived a long and healthy life, she had decided to die by starvation, and I had decided, at my mother’s request, to be there for her.

My grandmother had moved to the United States from Ireland 65 years earlier. While she spoke with a thick brogue and still chose tea over coffee, she did not glory in tales of the beautiful country she had left behind. Sean and Jimmy hated Ireland, she would often say about my brother and cousin, who had studied there in the early 2000s. It rained the whole time and their feet were never dry.

Of course, all I heard is how much they love their semesters in Ireland. They never complained about having wet feet. But my grandmother had left that dank, gray island, brutalized by British imperialism, and never looked back.

She landed in New York City, the bright and bustling opposite of her slow, sea washed homeland. She wore pink linen pantsuits and turquoise floral tops, never beige Irish wools or long, plaid skirts. She preferred pasta with red sauce to potatoes and brown bread. And then having reached 90, she had decided to die with seemingly as much confidence and determination as when she left her home country. Having been healthy her entire life and still blessed with the full ability to walk, talk, and cook, my grandmother stopped eating.

There was no discussion in the family as to whether we would force feed her or somehow coerce her into living more years that her body could have managed. She simply remained in her chair, draped in rosaries, waiting for what she believed to be her next step, heaven.

My grandmother’s matter of fact death announcement came a month after my college graduation. As the jobless and largely aimless person I was back then, except for the aim to experience new languages, foods, and sex, I became the most obvious candidate to be there for my grandmother during her final weeks.

And so for the next six weeks, I spent my days shouting over the TV — she was no longer using her hearing aids — as she peacefully lay in bed and starved herself to death. In the morning, we would listen to public radio. Or I would. She probably couldn’t hear. And I would make eggs and toast and put them on a plate for her, knowing that she would wordlessly refuse to eat. Within an hour, I would be eating them myself.

I would follow a recipe for Irish soda bread I found on yellowing newspaper in her drawer, only to eat half of it myself and pass the rest out to the neighbors, mostly nuns who were thrilled to get bread from a real Irish kitchen.

In the evening, an old Italian priest would knock on the door and deliver the blessed wafer, which my grandmother took solemnly on her tongue. I took it too, not because I believe it to be the flesh of Christ, but because I knew it was the only way to share a meal with my grandmother.

Needless to say, my living situation was not at all conducive to gay sex or most other sins, so I had none to confess before swallowing the wafer. I quickly learned how the human body can function with little food. For several days, we would walk together down the hall to daily Catholic mass. While the other mass attendants wore threadbare slippers and even bathrobes, my grandmother even in the face of death wore suits splashed with tropical patterns and a glistening gold watch at her wrist.

Far from my gay South American fantasy, I found myself single and surrounded by the pasty white faces of nuns and widows. No men were in my daily life other than the bloody, crucified, well-muscled, and oddly sexy Christ hanging above the altar.

Despite how close we were, especially as I saw her through to her end, my grandmother didn’t know I was gay, and I didn’t tell her.

Within weeks, she could no longer get dressed up or walk down the hall to mass or leave treats for the neighbors. Her pearly white skin turned dishwater gray. Her piercing green eyes became as cloudy as the sea she had once crossed.

Perhaps out of religious fervor or simply a need to cover up the smell of decay, the priest lit a tall, red candle depicting Jesus with his crowned heart of flame popping out of his chest. Like lace curtains barely concealing Irish poverty, the rose scented candle did little to hide the aroma of death that permeated the room.

One day as my grandmother lay in bed, the funeral of Margaret Thatcher flashed across the screen. Having not spoken in days, my grandmother nodded at Thatcher’s face on the screen and said, “I won’t be seeing her in heaven.”

Like many Irish people, my grandmother had never forgiven Margaret Thatcher for her hard line stance on keeping the North of Ireland in the United Kingdom, particularly her infamous indifference toward Bobby Sands, who died on hunger strike while interned by Thatcher’s government. I don’t know if my grandmother saw the parallel that, like the Freedom Fighter Sands, she too was on a hunger strike, against aging in her case.

My grandmother stayed alive for six weeks without food, almost as long as the 66 days Sands lived on hunger strike at age 27. Her death left me again jobless and without purpose, single, living with my parents, and full of that driftless feeling that you’re afraid will never pass when you’re in your early 20s.

I tried my best via Grindr to make it seem like I hadn’t just spent the past several months in a Catholic senior living community going to daily mass while seeing my grandmother to her death.

I never told most of the men I met about that, neither then nor in the years that followed.

On my first date with Matin, though, I immediately opened up in a way I never had before. Something in his warm, brown eyes said that I didn’t have to lie. As we walked through Central Park, he told me lovingly about his Muslim Iranian parents and the various foods, prohibitions, and celebrations that seemed to govern their lives. I knew that me, he was no stranger to prayers and incense, candles, prayer beads, and rituals for rituals sake.

We shared a kiss in the park, and I invited him for a drink. He said he would love to but that he had promised to bring his grandmother Iranian food in the hospital. “There’s no way she’s eating the American hospital food,” he said with a laugh. “If I don’t go, she’ll starve.” As I watched him walk away to fulfill his family duty, I was filled with a calm curiosity that I had never felt after a first kiss.

Years later, Matin and I have taught each other our grandmother’s cooking. He has filled our kitchen with scents of saffron and sumac, and he has learned to love Irish soda bread with Kerrygold butter. Despite his halal diet, we don’t let a Saint Patrick’s Day pass without blood puddings, bangers, and Guinness.

My grandmother died not knowing I was gay. It’s not that I thought she would object. It just didn’t come up, and I didn’t raise it. Matin’s grandmother, still living, doesn’t know he’s gay either. She comes from a country where homosexuality can be a death penalty crime. Mine left a land where Catholicism once ruled that then became the first nation to legalize same sex marriage through popular vote.

Many straight people can’t imagine hiding a core part of their identity from their loved ones, and some gay people would surely consider Matin and me to be cowards for not being honest with our grandmothers, for not trusting them with the knowledge of our true selves and say it isn’t real love if you’re keeping such a major part of yourself hidden.

My only response is that love is complicated and diverse. In many immigrant families, it’s intertwined with duty and care. For Matin, love is in the passed down Persian rugs, the five daily prayers, and the perfectly browned rice at the bottom of the pot. For me, it was being there to comfort my dying Irish grandmother as she chose to leave in the manner she wanted, cursing Margaret Thatcher’s name to the end.

John Paul, you read that so beautifully.

I mean, it’s almost bizarre how much I recognize in my own life here.

After the break, John Paul on the things he never told his grandmother and why she still knew him better than anyone else. Stay with us.

OK, so John Paul, you just read the essay “Young, Gay, and Single Among the Nuns and Widows” by Kevin Hershey. And you said that there were some striking similarities between Kevin’s story and your own. Tell me more about that.

So I come from a Mexican American background and a very Catholic background as well. And I never came out to either my abuela or my abuelo before they died. I tried to come out a couple times to my abuela, but she kind of had selective dementia where she would just kind of forget certain things. So one time I kind of ventured and said, I think I’m gay. And she turned to me and she was like, you know, mijo, Rachel Maddow is a handsome woman and then just moved on and kind of forgot again.

What a response.

Yeah, an all timer, for sure. And then also strangely, my abuela, also a very strong willed woman, she chose to die in kind of the same manner that Kevin’s grandmother chose to die. She just was — she was very stubborn and she was like, nope, I’m done, and she stopped eating. And we kind of believed her, because when she says that she feels a certain way or that she’s going to do something, it is impossible to change her mind. And so we knew that that’s how she was going to go. And obviously, there’s just a lot here that I was like, wow, that’s from my life.

I want to go back to this moment where you said you kind of tried to come out to your abuela. Did you say several times? So that time that you mentioned was not the only time?

Like once or twice, but it was always a probing question. Similarly to Kevin, I kind of thought this isn’t something that I really need them to know. We were so set in what our daily lives look like and the way that we knew each other and the kind of love that we shared. And I understand what he’s saying when he said that some would say that that’s cowardly or that she never knew the true me. But I just don’t see it that way, because I think that with my family and with my grandparents, I almost inhabited a truer me than I do here in New York, where I’m kind of out and about.

Tell me more about what you mean by that.

The moment when you really come out to a beloved family member, that’s a big moment, right? It’s a moment where you’re like, yes, we have entered a new phase of our relationship. But I guess what I’m talking about is more subtle and kind of just more ingrained into the everyday nature of things.

And so there are facets of me back when I lived at home and with my grandparents that I haven’t communicated to anyone else on Earth. And I think it’s just as sacred, it’s just as important, and it’s just as central to who I am than any other part of it. And so I shared something very special with my grandparents that I just never felt the need to bring this other part into it, I guess.

Is there a moment you can remember where you felt like you were being your true self with your grandparents, like a self that people in your community in New York don’t see as much?

So when I was a kid, my grandparents, my abuelos, they were poor their whole lives, but the way they lived their life looked very different than the way that I live mine. And so seeing what they did to cope and seeing the little life hacks that they would implement in their house that was sort of falling apart and the way they would steal food from buffets, which it sounds like you wouldn’t be able to steal food from buffets, but they found a way.

No, I mean, I know exactly what you’re saying. Bringing Tupperware to the Golden Corral. I understand that. Yeah, totally.

Exactly. So little things like that. And that’s a huge part of my identity. That’s what my childhood looked like. And when I meet people here in New York — and just the other day, I was at this nice literary party thing and having a really good time. There is this aspect of where I come from and my past, the things I’ve seen and the things I know and the things I understand that another person here just wouldn’t be able to wrap their brains around.

And it’s something that I don’t really communicate to just everyone. And so that was a version of me that my grandparents fostered and that they knew really well and that they said hello to every morning. And it’s intimate. It really is. And it’s important.

Yeah. I mean, I love what you’re saying. Your sexuality is just one piece of who you are and your grandparents knew all these other parts of you so deeply and so well. I think that’s really beautifully put. So I guess I wonder, do you think we have a duty to show our true selves to the people we love?

Yeah. So I would actually say that it kind of goes both ways. So when we come from immigrant backgrounds or we come from, in my case, my abuelos, they spoke Spanish. They knew a lot about Mexico. That’s where their families were from. There was a lot I didn’t know about them. So it wasn’t just like, oh, I’m gay and I’m keeping the secret from them. There was just so much about the intricacies of their inner lives that were not made privy to me.

And there is a narrative in place where it’s just like, oh, the immigrant grandparents suffered so that their grandchildren could have a nice, comfortable life. And in that narrative, their lives get kind of papered over and they get utilized as a way to be like, oh, well it was all leading up so that I could live the life I have. And so I’m not saying that it’s narcissistic or self-absorbed or anything.

But I am saying that your grandparents probably also have things about themselves that you haven’t seen and that you don’t know. And so it’s not like you’re the only one holding a secret or whatever. We all have things that go uncommunicated even with people that we love. And so I would say no, I don’t think that that makes you cowardly. I think that that makes you just a complicated human being like everyone is.

Is there something that you learned about your own abuela maybe later on in life that surprised you, that kind of jolted you out of that narrative?

Oh gosh. Well, it’s difficult, because — and I won’t speak for every Mexican family, but at least in my case, my grandparents were fabulists. So every time I talked to them about their origin stories or where they come from, it just changed every single time. I’m pretty sure one time my abuelo just completely ripped off the plot of “Coco” to talk about who my great grandfather.

It’s a great movie, yeah. It’s a great movie.

Yeah he was just like, oh, and mijo, your great grandfather, he was an amazing musician and he fought in the revolution and he played for the new president. But no, it was so hard to get the truth out of them. But it’s funny. We do have running jokes about abuelito, yeah, he was probably gay. I remember he passed not too long ago, like a few months ago.

And my mom sent this picture to us all of my abuelito in the military. And he is sitting on a bed with another man and he looks happier than we have ever seen him in our lives. And we’re all just like, man, that’s why he loved the military, huh? He was just like — all to say there are things that we just don’t know about our grandparents. He was so into fashion. One thing that we quote all the time is that one time my sister wore this striped shirt or something and my abuelito was just like, stripes? Really?

No. Grandparents can be so savage. They can really be — they can just cut you to your core. But it’s interesting what you’re saying. Those moments where our grandparents give us a glimpse into who they are as people. Those comments or those quips or those stories or whatever, they make us realize there’s so much we don’t know about them even if we’re super close with them. In the author Kevin Hershey’s case, even if we live with them, even if we care for them. There’s still so much we have to discover about the people we’re closest to. I think that’s a really important thing, a really beautiful thing to remember.

John Paul, thank you so much for this conversation. What a treat.

Thank you for having me. It was a blast.

Modern Love is produced by Julio Botero, Christina Djossa, Reva Goldberg, Davis Land, and Emily Lang. It’s edited by our executive producer, Jen Poyant, Reva Goldberg, and Davis Land. The Modern Love theme music is by Dan Powell. Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Rowan Niemisto, Carole Sabouraud, and Pat McCusker.

This episode was mixed by Daniel Ramirez. Our show was recorded by Maddy Masiello and Nick Pitman. Digital production by Mahima Chablani and Nell Gallogly. The Modern Love column is edited by Daniel Jones. Miya Lee is the editor of Modern Love projects. I’m Anna Martin. Thanks for listening.

[PIANO MUSIC]

• May 8, 2024   •   27:22 ¡Hola Papi!, Does My Grandmother Need to Know I’m Gay?
• May 1, 2024   •   31:54 Emily Ratajkowski Can Take Care of Herself, but a Little Help Would Be Nice
• April 24, 2024   •   28:31 Laufey, Gen Z’s Pop Jazz Icon, Sings for the Anxious Generation
• April 17, 2024   •   35:54 Why John Magaro of ‘Past Lives’ Could Never Love a Picky Eater
• April 10, 2024   •   29:18 Esther Perel on What the Other Woman Knows
• April 3, 2024   •   27:31 The Second Best Way to Get Divorced, According to Maya Hawke
• March 27, 2024   •   32:38 How to Be Real With Your Kids
• March 20, 2024   •   32:14 Why Samin Nosrat Is Now ‘Fully YOLO’
• March 13, 2024   •   32:32 Brittany Howard Sings Through the Pangs of New Love
• March 6, 2024   •   33:21 Novelist Celeste Ng on the Big Power of Little Things
• February 28, 2024   •   37:46 Three Powerful Lessons About Love
• February 23, 2024   •   33:45 Modern Love at the Movies: Our Favorite Oscar-Worthy Love Stories

Hosted by Anna Martin

Produced by Julia Botero ,  Christina Djossa ,  Reva Goldberg ,  Emily Lang and Davis Land

Edited by Jen Poyant ,  Davis Land and Reva Goldberg

Engineered by Daniel Ramirez

Original music by Dan Powell

Listen and follow Modern Love Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

“i said [to my abuela], ‘i’m gay.’ and she turned to me and she was like, you know, mijo, rachel maddow’s a handsome woman.”.

John Paul Brammer writes the “¡Hola Papi!” advice column for The Cut at New York magazine, answering questions like, “ Why am I dreaming about sex with a man when I’m a lesbian? ” Or, “ What if my partner judges me for writing smut? ” This candor has given John Paul an intimate connection with his readers. However, as today’s episode reveals, he doesn’t think we necessarily need that level of openness with all of our loved ones.

Ahead of Mother’s Day, Brammer reads an essay about a recent college graduate who sets out to spend the summer exploring his sexuality, but whose plans are derailed by his duty to his grandmother. It’s called “ Young, Gay and Single Among the Nuns and Widows ” by Kevin Hershey. Brammer says it’s “bizarre” how much this essay resonates with his own life.

Links to transcripts of episodes generally appear on these pages within a week.

Modern Love is hosted by Anna Martin and produced by Julia Botero, Reva Goldberg, Emily Lang and Christina Djossa. The show is edited by Davis Land and Jen Poyant, our executive producer. The show is mixed by Daniel Ramirez and recorded by Maddy Masiello and Nick Pitman. It features original music by Pat McCusker, Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Carole Sabouraud, Rowan Niemisto and Diane Wong. Our theme music is by Dan Powell.

Special thanks to Larissa Anderson, Kate LoPresti, Lisa Tobin, Daniel Jones, Miya Lee, Mahima Chablani, Nell Gallogly, Jeffrey Miranda, Isabella Anderson, Reyna Desai, Renan Borelli, Nina Lassam and Julia Simon.

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected] . Want more from Modern Love ? Read past stories . Watch the TV series and sign up for the newsletter . We also have swag at the NYT Store and two books, “ Modern Love: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption ” and “ Tiny Love Stories: True Tales of Love in 100 Words or Less .”

Advertisement