Everett Sjolseth | The Renaissance Changemaker

Our Experiences Are More Than Stories to Share

Life experiences are not just stories. Our individual experiences shape how we see the world and how we communicate within it whether through reading, writing, or other ways of communicating. For me, my upbringing and experience with vision loss formed how I communicate. Literature and writing became tied to personal challenges and opportunities, starting with my love of reading before vision loss, to how I have used writing to persuade and inform others, to my use of social media. From loving to read when I was little, to losing my vision, to communicating about conservation and leading others, and having little experience with social media, my experience shows how personal experience influences how we read, write, and share ideas. The life experiences I have had not only have given stories for me to tell but also have shaped the way that I write. From experiencing the joy of reading prior to my vision loss, to writing for a purpose, to finding out how words can persuade and influence, each experience has definitely influenced my process and helped me grow and mature as a writer.

Seeing how life experiences shape how we interact with literature starts with how my loss of vision changed how I view reading. I used to love staying up late at night, all curled up, and enjoying an excellent book or series. A well-constructed book, regardless of what it is about, is one of the most engaging activities that exist. One series I enjoyed for a long time is called Warriors. I would spend hours turning page after page. I was a voracious reader, always buried in a book. I loved the escape into a magical world, a break from real things going on in our lives. I read regularly until my ninth grade year. Around that time my vision took a drastic turn for the worse. My vision started decreasing in sixth grade. I began to have spots in my vision that make it look like what I like to call “reverse Swiss cheese.” It is like black spots, dots, and lines in my vision. I labeled it like “extreme floaters,” since the doctors do not know what is wrong. In ninth grade, I no longer read as much for enjoyment, as reading became more about work and frustration rather than being lost in a story. I could use audiobooks, but there is something I am grieving about with not being able to read. I really wish I found it easier to just curl up and read an enjoyable book. Right now, reading is always laborious work that stresses my eyes. This shift in my ability to read has definitely taught me that writing is not completely focused about producing words but instead about valuing the effort that it takes to engage with the text. My struggle with reading has pushed me to see writing as something I needed to approach with purpose and patience, instead of just for entertainment.

While losing my vision robbed me of enjoying reading, writing has been hard for me for other reasons. I have always had a challenging time sitting down and writing something. I tend to get distracted and end up leaving halfway through. In fact, while drafting this paper I have gotten distracted and off task. But I must remind myself of the task I had originally set out to do. One of the memories I have is tied to when my mom authored a book when I was younger and had my brother give feedback. I remember laying down on the carpeted floor with my brother and staring at my mother as she read from her book. One recurring thought that I have when I think about this is when I write I need to be writing for a purpose or cause. I need to be writing about something that people need to hear, something important. This memory taught me that writing is important and has purpose it reminded me that when I am ready to write I am most effective when I am writing with a purpose or message in mind and not merely vomiting words onto paper.

One very personal project that was important to me was Trash Me for Kids. Through Trash Me for Kids, I learned that the connection between writing and presenting helped me start great conversations and influence others around conservation. Trash Me (without the kid part) was a project originally made by an environmental activist, Rob Greenfield. In his project, he documented his journey of wearing all the trash he made for an entire month. I saw a video about his project, and I decided that I would do it too. Before I even could think about doing my own spin on Rob Greenfield’s Trash Me project, I had to email him and ask for his permission. As I was in just the fifth grade, I sent an email from my mother’s account and explained what I had wanted to do. I wanted to show to my community just exactly how much trash was created in just a short time. But I didn’t want to just show how much trash I made. I wanted to show how much waste we could prevent with just a few alterations to our behaviors and habits. After I obtained permission from Rob Greenfield for me to do my own version, Trash Me for Kids. I wrote a proposal for the principal, Molly Hovin, of my elementary school to persuade her to let me wear trash at school. I presented it to her in an official meeting. Mrs. Hovin suggested that I should share on the school’s morning announcements about why I was wearing a suit of trash. From that morning announcement presentation to being interviewed several times by reporters, Rob Greenfield, and presenting at local Boy Scout troops, I communicated the real issues around waste and ways kids could conserve as I answered questions about why I was wearing trash everywhere I went. In the end, I ended up with over sixty pounds of trash from the first two weeks of average waste, and after I implemented the few changes during the second two weeks of waste collection, I ended up with less than three pounds of trash, which further created conversations with others and the chance to continue to write and present. I learned, and dare say enjoyed, that I could write presentations and communicate well with others on important issues. By this project I discovered that writing can open doors in the form of proposals announcements and interviews all of which began with the words that I placed on a page it made me grow up as a writer by showing me that my words could convince individuals and initiate actual conversations that counted.

Another life experience that shaped my communication skills in a more formal way was with Youth in Government (YG), a mock legislative session where students proposed and defended bills they drafted. For my first bill I wanted to implement TerraCycle program into schools in Texas. TerraCycling collects food packing, like Capri-suns. The company cleans and repurposes the packaging to help minimize waste created at schools. I never took that bill very far into debates because my interest was captured with something I had not given much thought to: running for an elected position in YG. As an elected official, I would preside over hundreds of delegates during our yearly State Legislative Session. So, after months of preparing my bill for bigger debates, I dropped it and developed a platform and speech for running for “Speaker of the House.” I had to prepare and give a speech as to why I, out of all the candidates, should be the one to preside over three hundred delegates for several days of mock legislative sessions in the basement of the Texas capitol building. I won the local election and the state election. Only after I had been voted in did I realize how speeches are able to win people over and influence the very core of our lives. The words we speak have power, and we need to be mindful of that. We should put as much thought into what we say in our day-to-day lives as much as a speech you are going to be giving. Delivering speeches and campaigning for office in youth and government taught me the impact that well-crafted words can have. It matured my writing process by causing me to consider not only tent but also the way that my words would sound and feel to other people when they are being read aloud.

While my experience in YG showed me the power of speaking to groups, my parents’ choice to limit my social media informed me how I connected with people. I grew up controlling parents and was not allowed to have any social media until just recently. Although I may not have much experience with posting on social media, I think that that could be a better option than having unrestricted access to the internet and social media outlets from a young age. I am more sociable in person since I could not use any online presence to connect with people. I was forced to interact with real people, face-to-face. If you had asked me if I thought my folks’ rules were necessary to my development when I was younger, I would have said they didn’t know what they were talking about. Nowadays, I do not think that I was hindered because of my parents’ rules on having social media, because I now have the skills and knowledge to think about any content or information, whether I am communicating online or in-person. Absence of social media made me lie on direct communication while sometimes it was constricting it actually made me write more maturely because it conditioned me to be more careful with clarity as I had to express myself directly without the intermediaries of the online world.

In conclusion, my life experiences are more than stories and have influenced how Icommunicate with others. Since the decline of my vision, I have gone from being an avid reader to someone who only reads if they need to get information. From being very purposeful in writing and presentations, I have developed a focus on the importance of what we say to others. I adapt to my environment and rise to the occasion. If I did not have my own unique experiences nothing would change and nothing would evolve. So, in my eyes these stories are the most important stories to tell as they help others understand us and how we have grown. These experiences showed me that writing is more than just a job. It’s about being patient when making a plan, being clear when trying out different drafts or styles, and being clear when thinking about your purpose and audience. Each stage has made me a more thoughtful and reflective writer.